Australia 2011

Farming 1

oconnorclare — Sun, 2 Oct 2011 20:07:00 GMT

I haven’t written in so long but Im going to start when I got to Victoria Downs Station, Morven. Basically since I last wrote, I left Perth, stayed in Melbourne for a while and then decided to get a job on a farm so I can get a second year visa. Which brought me to a town called Morven on the Waraego Highway, Queensland.

I got this job and left Melbourne fairly quickly, did a bit of shopping for work stuff and booked flights to Brisbane. I stayed there for the night and got the bus out the next morning at 0730, the stay in Brisssie was fairly uneventful, and I caught the greyhound bus for the 10 hour ride to my new home! The journey passed fairly quickly actually and we stopped in a couple of places along the way, by the time I got off the bus there were two people carrying on to Charleville...yes, Charleville (more about that later).

Narda (the mum) collected me from the bus and drove out to the house, about 3km outside town, the property starts. It is a 33,000 acre cattle and sheep station, it has a practically straight main road going diagonally through it so its a long drive through the property before you even see the house and farm buildings, its just paddocks of white grass dotted with trees as far as the eye can see, its spectacular to drive down the straight road surrounded by such vast, unspoiled land. The odd few sheep poking around, lots of road kill (kangaroos, wallabies, wombats and boars) marking the journey! The main road goes to Darwin eventually and there is a huge amount of road trains going past all day, (huge amount being, one every 10-30 mins. Thats all the traffic apart from a few white utes passing, they are always white). A road train, by the way, is an articulated truck with multiple trailers, Ive seen up to four. They are fairly cool.

The first evening I just settled into my new room and had dinner and lovely sleep, ready to rise at 0600, joy! So at the ungodly hour of six am I got up and met Will (the farmer)and Ed, (the other backpacker here). We headed out for a drive around the place, or a small part of it anyway, in the ute, it was really cool driving around at sunrise seeing all the animals across the huge paddocks, lots of kangaroos bounding across fields, emus running or grazing, little sheep grazing, lots of birds singing the morning chorus. The birdsong here is amazing, there are so many different sounds and tones, all day long, completly different from home. After this we picked up out new modes of transport, quad and motor bikes, and went for a ride to get used to them before we went mustering sheep! This was so cool, first day of work, just riding around on bikes, herding sheep from paddock to paddock. Mustering is cool actually, you start at one end of the paddock, sweep out in a line and herd them forward and then to the corner you want them in, this gets alot harder when your trying to do a paddock thats about a kilometre wide! As usual, my first day in the sun I got sunburned, on my hands and face especially, I looked like a little lobster! Ill have the worst farmers tan when I leave here. Its beautiful here though and the weather generally has been great, nice and warm through the day but not too hot. The only problem has been that most mornings in the last month have been reeeeeeeeally cold! Last weekend it was two degrees over night. So you go out in the morning with four or five layers on and by lunchtime your down to a tshirt. Back to the layers once the sun goes down. When we arrived it was getting light about six and dark about six. Now its bright before six and light to nearly seven I suppose. We work light till dark, the days fly and the last four weeks have passed so quickly.

One day we had to ear mark some lambs and cut their tails off, this shows how tolerant of blood, dirt, death and rotten smells I have become! It was our second day and I really thought it was disgusting, I think I was just worried about hurting them. So I found out the meaning of ear marking, literally, the male and female lambs get marks cut out of their ears and then you tell age and stuff from this. There are areas on the farm where the ground has been dug out to create a big pond for rainwater, these are called dams and are used to water the animals and stuff like that. At the moment it is lambing season and the ewes are heavily pregnant, sometimes when they go to water they get stuck in the mud and exhaust themselves trying to get out, or go headfirst into the water and drown. This doesn’t happen much but due to being really busy during shearing time the week before we arrived, there was a few dead sheep around a couple of the dams when we arrived. One day we had to clear these away so we tied a rope to them and towed them away on the back of the quad. The problem was that since they had been there a while they were a bit soft and as I was trying to pull a couple of them away, their heads fell off! This was my introduction to farm life. Its funny, now Im pulling sheeps legs out of mud, shearing sheep (more about that later) and carrying dead baby lambs away (this was the one time I felt so bad it made me cry the first day I found one, when I saw that the crows had pecked out its eyes and its face was covered in blood, it looks like they are crying red tears). The crows are awful, disgusting vultures. If there is any sheep that are not as strong as the others or vulnerable they peck out their eyes while they are still alive, they peck holes in their back and eat their flesh out of it. Its terrible, especially, as I said, if they are newborn lambs.

There are lambs around at the moment and they are so cute, long spindly legs and skinny bodies, they run so fast too, one day I had to catch one actually, it was funny. I got him as we were only in a pen, but thats kind of a cliché I think, an idiot running around in circles after a baby lamb! Another thing about the sheep thats funny, Ive noticed, when your driving around, (the paths are down along the fences, on both sides) the sheep will be lying there, a group at either side, having a little gossip session! They don’t make a noise, but obviously there is some communication going on among friends. When you come on the scene, they all flee in every direction.

They have about twelve dogs here, they are really beautiful dogs, called Kelpies. They are sheep and cattle dogs and come out mustering, they are really good, fit and lovely tempered dogs. They are so well trained and they sit up on the back of the motorbikes and quad when were driving along! I thought it was amazing the first time I saw it. In the evenings we take them for a run, they run after the bikes up the paddock, then when they come back they (all twelve of them) go back to their own kennels to be tied up! Theres always one or two I suppose who are trying to be rebels but they are no trouble! We should have had Louie out here! speaking of Louie, there is a puppy here called Jelly and shes so cute. She comes out with us working to get to know everything and shes so full of energy. Shes the image of Louie, the dog we used to have at home, when he was a puppy. Kangaroos here are a pest on the land and are in huge numbers. In Australia there are professional ‘Roo shooters’. People who come onto the farms and shoot roos. There are also dog trackers. This is cool. There are some wild dogs, maybe Dingoes, that kill the animals so there are professionals who track these and catch them and kill them. This is very difficult to do as you can imagine, it is said these people think like dogs!

The first weekend I was here, Will and Narda wend on holidays for a week and left us to look after the farm! It was fine actually, we just had general stuff to do and watch the animals and that. There are four daughters in the family, including two identical twins who come home most weekends. So one day we went with the girls to a neighbours property (10 km away). We had a nice day actually. They were bringing a mare of theirs over to meet a stallion on the property next door, so maybe they could have a lovely baby! The first place we went to was lovely, there were guinea fowl roaming around the garden, and Malcolm showed us his collection of farming memorabilia, including a side saddle! One used by the ladies in the old days, that was cool. Its lovely here with the sun shining generally and just a relaxed atmosphere, we just did a few things, put the mare in the horse box and we all headed off next door. This place was cool too, they had lots of lovely horses, but the funniest thing was that they had a few sheep, and two al paka! These are the funniest looking animals. So I discovered that day that al paka (a relative of the lama) protect the sheep from dogs, they can be vicious and keep the dogs away from the sheep, the funny thing was that they had pet dogs so the al paka were chasing the pet dogs away whenever they came near the house!

We went mustering cattle one day, that was cool. Interesting more so than the sheep I suppose as they are bigger and a bit more exciting. They are fairly good though and not too many tried to run away or anything. There are some huge animals though, or ‘beasts’ as they are called. The girls took their horses out and we had the bikes. That was cool, mustering cattle through big paddocks with some trees. Sometimes they just run into the trees, they are fairly smart at working out what you don’t want them to do at times I think!

The tv here is funny, the ads are hilarious at times. Since Ive been here I seen ads for bulls with ‘exceptional semen packages’, ‘pyjamajeans’ jeans that feel like pyjamas!, endorsements for shops/produce by local farmers wearing atrocious clothing, all monotone lifeless statements. There are ads for cool things too though, the ads for the big cattle sales look so great, hundreds of pens of cattle, thousands of cattle on sale on a day. Ads for rodeo competitions, I really want to see one of these. Its similar here to what we would know of Texas or something,(from tv!) huge cattle stations, people wear cowboy hats, you need something out in the sun, jeans and shirts. One of the girls here was working on a station up north that was over two million acres. Imagine that!

Back to Perth and the rain

oconnorclare — Mon, 30 May 2011 18:40:00 GMT

Im sitting in Monkey Mia now, just a few meters from the beach having coffee while waiting to get the bus to the airport. It is really beautiful here, the sun is shining and the water is blue with the sun shimmering on it. Two days ago we got off the ship. Friday was a bit hectic, we got up at 0500, got the crazy kids ready to leave and sent them off to the bus. There was much ‘Woo hoo’-ing as we were getting closer to getting off! Myself and Angela were supposed to be getting off the next day but since our reliefs were already here in Monkey Mia then we ended up leaving that day too. We had to take fuel before I left so the guys came out in the fuel boat. One of them turned out to be this Irish guy from Meath, Joe. He was a nice fella. They were the guys from a Pearl farm here, just close to where we anchor so they took us over to see the place. They grow the oysters and pearls there. That was a cool place to see. So we got back and got ready and with a ridiculous amount of luggage we left the ship to go ashore! Considering I left 5 bags of stuff in Fremantle and Im going back from herewith 2 luggage bags, I don’t know what the hell Im going to do with all my stuff, or how I have accumulated so much! we checked into our room and went to meet the other guys from work that were here already. It was a lovely day, sitting out the front of the restaurant in the sun, catching up on everything. We had dinner with about eight of us and then headed to the pub and celebrated our new found freedom! The champagne had to make an appearance and didn’t really disappear after it came out!

Yesterday morning we had breakfast in the sun and had a nice relaxing morning, joined by Dan for a while when he came off the ship. It was funny, four grown women sharing a room at the backpackers, were like kids when we get together. Myself, Sarah, Angela and Naomi. Sarah and Naomi flew home yesterday morning so me and Ange were going to drive around Shark Bay and go to Denham, the next town but our car fell through so we just hung around here for the day. Were flying home in a couple of hours so Sarah will be there ready with the wine and pate and chesse! Woohoo!

Since I last wrote here, we have just been sailing and the like. One day I had a day off so I went to go sailing on the Shotover, the catamaran here, they take people out on day trips around the bay here. It was a cold day and a bit wet which wasn’t the best weather but it got sunny for a while. Luckily I was prepared with all my clothes though as it ended up getting very cold! I was sitting up the front of the cat,chatting to one of the lads and the waves started breaking up the hull under where I was sitting, then as we went over a few waves I started lifting off the deck and getting sprayed with cold waves at the same time, I was soaked and cold by the end of it but it was so much fun! That morning I had a good luck around Monkey Mia and went for a walk on a train out in the desert. That was cool, its not very far out the back of Monkey Mia, the sand is red dirt which is amazing, I walked through the bush and ended up on a beach around the corner from here. The beach is white sand so its cool to see the contrast.

The sun sets and sun rises here are really beautiful. The colours are spectacular and its crazy the amount of colours and patterns that it goes through between the first light and the sun actually rising. The sun sets are really cool too, the cliffs here stretch for ages and when the sun sets the sky over them goes really deep orange to green to blue and then navy, with the moon up above it in the sky. Another night we saw the moon about 9om and it was in a black sky, glowing bright orange. That was really cool.

Last week there was a small tear in one of our sails, myself and Angela climbed up to sew it. It was cool, the weather was a bit bumpy and we were out on the end of the yard, hanging on, trying to sew this sail. Its cool up there just standing on the foot rope balancing as the ship rolls around, with nothing between you and the sea 15m below.

We were taking the kids ashore one day to this beach which was completely isolated, with nothing around for miles and miles, when these two young guys arrived up in a small RIB with no life-jackets on or anything. They just came over to the side of the ship saying how nice she was and asking a few questions. They then sped off saying they were going for a bit of a fish! We saw them later fishing alright, I just thought it was the strangest thing! No idea where they came from!

To return to the whole idea of the Australians walking around with no shoes on, people here don’t really wear shoes, its fairly cool actually, Ive been walking around with no shoes on for 2 days now. In the city I don’t like the idea as there couple be anything on the floor and its dirty too but here its really clean and theres so much sand around anyway its easier to go barefoot. Its possible that if you lived here and worked here your whole life that you could never have owned a pair of shoes! How funny is that!

Last week we were coming back from being ashore and a pod of dolphins came back with us. It was really cool, we tied up alongside the ship in our dory boat and the dolphins just swam around so close that we could touch them. I never was one to be overly impressed by dolphins and still wasn’t until that night which was fairly cool, and the next week when a pod of about 10 came by the ship when we were sailing and they are actually really cool they way they all move and almost dance around together. They follow each others patterns so theres an almost continuous wave of dolphins swimming along.

In an unrelated event J we caught some big fish last week. One big tuna and a big mackerel. We cooked them both up and they were so nice, it makes the biggest difference to have the fish cooked just after its caught.

Im just back in Fremantle since last night and its lovely to be back, though I do miss Monkey Mia a bit, the lovely warm sun and feeling of freedom, no mobile phone for five weeks, if you need to find someone you just go to where you know theyll be. Sarah has bought a new house so we went up to Gilderton today where Chris has a beach house and collected a washing machine and did a few things. Me, Ange and her brother headed up in the ute, how Australian! Its a big brute of a thing and Im surprised Ange got us back in one piece each! I don’t know what Ill do when I start travelling on my own in a couple of months! I have been living in peoples pockets for the last 5 months, especially the last 5 weeks, now were staying at Chris’s house with Christen, next Me, Sarah and Ange will move into Sarahs house, that will be madness! Then Emma will be here and after that, Mom and Dad, Im so lucky to have all these visitors J

Photos: Up to May 2011

oconnorclare — Mon, 30 May 2011 18:18:00 GMT

Sailing

oconnorclare — Sat, 14 May 2011 01:38:00 GMT

I am sitting on the ship, at anchor off Cape Peron, Shark Bay, WA right now. I haven’t written here in an age so as usual I have loads to write and it will be in a nice higgildy-piggildy fashion! We are in Shark Bay for 5 weeks and then I will be flying back to Fremantle. Its really nice here, our base is Monkey Mia, which is a little village you might call it, in the middle of nowhere. There is literally a shop, pub, restaurant, hostel, some chalets and an information centre. You can walk the length of it in about 3 minutes. Theres a lovely beach there and its famous for dolphins which come into the beach to feed at certain times of the day. You can have a camel ride and all sorts! Its a big tourist place but you just go to relax. The pub, chalets and hostel open out onto the beach, mostly everything does actually, and its beautiful. The coastline around it is amazing, it is red dirt going into white sand, cliffs with beaches at the bottom of them. It is a wildlife sanctuary, and really serene.

We do a voyage a week and have most of two days between them which is lovely, just a few of us on the ship, anchored here and going ashore for a few drinks or food. The weather is really nice too, its warm and sunny but not too hot, and we came north at the right time as Perth is cold and rainy at the moment by all accounts!

For my birthday last week it was nice. I got presents in the post which were all great, thanks! So I opened them, then we went ashore and had a few drinks in the Monkey Bar! Sitting out in the sun, looking onto the beach, its just lovely there. We obviously had to have champagne for the occasion! Unfortunately I also had a hard day on the beach! I broke my toe on one of the steps coming off the beach, its been quite sore, not as sore as the time I broke the same poor toe a couple of years ago in Grace O’Connells place in Blackrock, and had to go to Ghana with a massively swollen foot! I think I put a pic on Facebook of the offending toes this time, they got a good bruising!

There is a lovely catamaran here called the ‘Shotover’ which does sails around the bay here, they bring the kids out here for the voyages. The kids arrive at about 6pm on the first day, after an 11 hour bus ride from Perth. After the week sailing, they leave at 6am on the last day which is cool, we get up at 4.30am and get everything ready, the Shotover comes to pick them up and once theyre ready and gone, were here all alone again by 0700! Its great being up that early in the morning, already having done a few hours work and ready to relax for the day! Or work?

Last weekend I put up my hammock on the deck, it was great, so nice to just sit there in the sun, swaying with the ships movement. We put it up the first day though in the morning and it was fairly windy and a bit cold, so I was there in my long trousers, hoodie, beanie (wooly hat), trying to get into the hammock without being blown away! Obviously the antics had to follow, tying people up while they were asleep in it etc, oh the fun we have on here!

Week off

oconnorclare — Sat, 2 Apr 2011 00:04:00 GMT

As usual i am starting off with ‘i haven’t written here for so long’, but thats just the way it is at this stage! Im doing alot better with this blog than i thought i would in the first place. I don’t even know where to start so ill just write as i think of things.

At the moment im on a voyage and were at bunker bay, cape naturaliste. Its lovely here and we had great weather for sailing on the way down. We were here before and i came here on teh road trip from teh land side which was nice. Its really pitturesque here, there is a cafe above the beach which looks down on teh sea and its supposed to be amazing, we were going to go there on the road trip but we didn’t, ill have to come back and go there as we can see it from teh ship.

The last voyage we did was the ultimate challenge voyage which was the best thing ever. I had a really great time for the whole week. It is a voyage for people with various disabilities. It was so much fun and hard work and i loved it!

I had a week off after that voyage as i hadn’t had too much time off before that and i wont have much time off between here and the beginning of june. I decided that i would laze around fremantle and see the places and things that i had been meaning to see since i got here and didn’t have the chance to. It ended up being a really strange week though as i went from working long and hard hours and being really busy to nothing at all. I didn’t know what to do with myself! I did have a few good days though.

I got a nice apartment by the beach for 3 days to have a nice little break for myself. It was nice, so good to lie on the couch all day watching crap tv and surfing the net!

I went into Perth one day and wandered around the city with one of the lads. It was alot of fun actually. It was nice to just walk into random shops and stuff. I bought a really cool book which Im reading now called ‘The suspicions of Mr. Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House’. Its a ‘who dunnit?’ but a true story so its cool. I like roaming into cool little shops and stuff and wanted to buy loads of clothes! We went to Tiffanys, checked out all the jewellery there, went into a Swiss watch shop that you had to be buzzed into, and ate a chese plate and potato wedges in a little retro cafe!

On the Saturday of that week it was Angelas birthday so we went to Adventure World, it was a blast! We woke up early and went out for eggs on toast in the cafe next door first which was great. Its a water park and adventure park, it was a glorious day and so we headed off, myself, Sarah and Ange for a kids day out! We met Curly from work there and his son Isaac. We didn’t stop laughing all day, we had races on the slides and laughed at eachother coming off the end of the water slides. We tried not to vomit on the rides and hoped to God that we wouldn’t fall out of our bikinis on one of them, (like a woman before us!) As you couldn’t reach to fix yourself with the bars! After that we had a BBQ in Curly and Kellys house, that was lovely.

I went to the zoo with Ange one day, that was really nice actually. Its a nice zoo in Perth, its really green. We took alot of the day there and saw everything and then we went for food that evening, we were going to go to the cinema but we were a bit late checking the times, I went in the end to see ‘The Rite’ which was so disappointing, i wanted to go home half way through but just slept through to the end!

I cant really remember much else I did for the week, I just wandered around Fremantle seeing some touristy things, checked out the markets and shops and chilled out really. They had a BBQ here on Friday evening which was nice, I caught up with a few of the lads there and then went for a lovely Japanese dinner with Chris, Christen, Sarah and Angela.

Then we came straight on this voyage and we have another one straight away after it. Its been great sailing this week though and the weather has been nice. It was cold enough for a couple of days, especially in the mornings, weather for jeans, jumper jacket and hat! You can definitely feel the change happening in the weather here now, its still really nice but its bearable most days now instead of being too hot, it gets cool in teh evenings too somedays which is nice too for a break.

more road trip

oconnorclare — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:32:00 GMT

After a wonderful nights sleep we decided to go to see Whale World, this is a museum of sorts at an old whaling station that was in operation until as recently as about 40 years ago. It was a really interesting place showing videos of the whales being cut up and broken down into pieces. It was a bit gruesome at times but overall worth the visit. When we arrived at Whale World the first thing we had to do was to have breakfast and what a breakfast it was! We got the nicest poached eggs and bacon on toast ive had since i got here, and we ate it on the restaurant balcony on the beach with a view of the harbour in Albany, it was a beautiful morning. Carrying on the theme that Albany was a bit like Ireland, being so green and cooler, the day we were there was lovely and fresh and sunny but cool, this was the best day they had in ages!

We left Albany then to hit the road as we weren’t doing too well for time. We drove through Denmark (Australia, this confused me the first time i was speaking to a girl who was talking about Denmark as home with an Australian accent!) we stopped in the bakery there which is famous, we ate in the park by the river and it was lovely. There is also an amazing chocolatiers there called ‘The Dark Side’ which had the most amazing sweets. Among the varieties were Beetroot and Shiraz, Strawberry gum (from a gum tree), Butter caramel (excellent), Cocoa and lime, pepperpot, and many more I cannot remember.

Our next destination was the tree top walk. The whole area down that corner of the world is full of national parks and forests which are huge. The trees are massive and the forests cover great expanses. The tree top walk is a bridge built along the top of the canopy between about five trees. It is made of steel and moves as you walk on it, supposedly to mimic the swaying of the trees. It was nice to walk up there and i probably would have been more scared to be so high in the air but it was nothing compared with the canopy walk i did in Ghana which was on a dodgy rope bridge 30m above the ground! After the treetop walk we walked through some of the forest that had the really old trees and some were so old they had died in the centre but were still living trees and you could walk through the centre of the trunk!

We arrived in Pemberton and got a hotel room, went to the IGA and got bread, chese and pate and watched tv while stuffing our faces! We watched tv and it was great, ‘the big bang theory’, ‘NCIS’ and lots more. There wasn’t much happening in pemberton so we had a quiet night and got up early the next morning. We did this every night actually! I think NCIS till half ten was the latest i stayed up any night! Its bad here that way, or good really but every night im in bed before ten and up before seven, eleven o clock is unheard of! I have seen a club once since i got here and wont have been in the pub past half ten any other night either!

We carried on from there to see the Gloucester tree. This was amazing and the scariest, stupidest thing i have ever done! It is a tree over 60m which has spikes sticking out the side in a ladder pattern and you climb up these to a platform at the top, theres nothing to stop you falling off and its really scary! But it is amazing and a brilliant view from the top. Ill add in some pictures of the tree, its actually unbelievable! When we went into the park, the attendant at the gate just said that we need enclosed shoes if were climbing and to be careful! There wasn’t even anyone there when we were going up, the worst thing was the couple that were on their way up when we were coming down, two people on one spike at one time is mad! If anyone is in this part of the world they have to do it just because its crazy!

So after this we went on the pemberton tramway. This was full of old people and id say the average weight of everyone there was probably 100kg! Ah thats terrible, it wasn’t that bad really. It was interesting to do it actually, but i could understand how the lady in front of us thought it was ‘boring’. It was a slow old tram that went through the forests of marri and karri trees along an old tramway that had been built 80 years ago to link the small towns of the southwest to perth and was never finished. It went through the forests at the side of the town and past a logging mill which was cool, some of the logs were massive and worth about $7000 each! It carried on over a few old wooden railway bridges which were cool and we went through a forest walk then. Since we had visited the Gloucester tree we decided to go see the bicentennial tree which is another ‘climbing tree’ which is actually taller than the other one. I didn’t brave this one though!

We hit the road then and drove to cape leeuwin lighthouse via a little town called agusta, here we also stopped to go to a bakery, this was the theme of the trip actually! There are bakeries everywhere here! At cape leeuwin the Indian ocean meets the southern ocean. It was nice there but we kept going after a short walk as we wanted to get to Margaret river. This is a big wine district and we had the idea to go on a tour of the wineries. This never happened as we were late getting there, about half four and everything in this country shuts a 5pm without fail! We got a hotel room and surprise surprise we stayed in eating cheese and bread! First we did go and walk around the town, its a nice place, and we did get to the fudge shop before it closed which was most important! I got tasters of vanilla, irish crème, cointreau, chocolate and something else which i cant remember!

What a morning we had the next day! The most productive morning ever! By ten past nine we had, checked out, had eggs on toast for brekkie, had two cups of coffee and a doughnut and blissfully ignorantly tried a winery for some wine to take home, it turns out all the wineries open at ten or eleven. So at 9am we probably looked a bit strange trying to buy some wine but we met the owner outside and he brought us in! It was a bit early to sample it but we got some anyway. All of this by 09.10!

We had a bit of driving ahead of us before we got home but we did stop in a few more wineries. We had a pile of wine in the back of the car! For those of you at home, it is really cool going around the wineries, obviously someone has to drive unless your on a bus tour but you go to the ‘cellar door’ which is like a small restaurant usually and you can sample the wines they have, then you buy some if you like it. Some of them are really nice and its hard to chose! And obviously if you keep drinking all the wine you could have a sore head in the morning!

We carried on to cape naturaliste and around geographe bay, this was beautiful, we had been there on a ship last week so it was cool to see it from the land side. We stopped in busselton to see the 2km long jetty and walked to the end of that and then we came home. It was like we never left!

Time off!!!

oconnorclare — Wed, 9 Mar 2011 22:04:00 GMT

Today i was working and just couldn’t wait for the sailings to finish, though we have had a good laugh at work this week, the banter and jokes following the day where Jason the chef was ‘the man’, surrounded by us four ladies, have carried on and theres a good atmosphere around, nice sunny days, good coffee, poached eggs for breakfast, good times!

Speaking of poached eggs, the other morning i got up and asked Ange if she was going to cook eggs, she does this some mornings if were off, and i fancied some nice breakfast, she replied that she was going to cook some eggs, at that exact moment, captain sarah jumped out of her cabin excitedly exclaiming ‘who wants poached eggs?!’ we thought this was quite funny as we had all woken up with the same idea, until we went out to the galley and Jason the chef was already cooking poached eggs for us all! How cool was that!

That day on the sailing chris our boss invited Sarah, myself and Angela to a BBQ in his house, thats what your supposed to do in Australia, have a Barbie and i realised that since i arrived two months ago that i haven’t been to an ausie Barbie! I said that i was going to throw another shrimp on the Barbie when i got there! When the girls heard this they told chris and when i arrived at the house they had gotten some prawns especially in honour of my first Barbie!

Its so funny when you say that to an ausie about throwing another shrimp on the Barbie, i said it to angela and she said ‘i don’t even know why you say that as we have prawns, not shrimp!

This week i have four days off together, which is unheard of so i decided to take a drive down the coast. I was going to rent a car and go where the road took me until we worked out that Ange the bosun is off too so we decided to head off together on a ‘thelma and louise – esque’ road trip! After some haphazard planning we decided to go as far as Albany and drive back up.

Yesterday, being a public holiday, everywhere was closed and captain sarah pointed out it would be a better idea to drive all the way down to Albany and back up the coast. This was a mighty fine idea so we decided to head off, Albany, here we come!

Once, on home and away about ten years ago, noah was driving down the road and he had to ‘chuck a u-ie’, ie. do a U-turn. It became a running joke in the O’Connor household which can be heard the odd time to this day, so yesterday when we passed a turnoff i said’ oh ange, youll have to chuck a u-ie’ i was laughing to myself until she said, with a straight face ‘ya, maybe i will’. i realised i was in Australia and this might not seem such a strange thing to her! When i told her the joke, she said ‘ i was wondering why you were speaking like that!’.

In the last couple of months i have heard alot of talk about a lady called ‘super sue’, sue lives in Albany so angela rang her and said we were coming down and she invited us to stay with her. Sue is a volunteer on the leeuwin. The drive down is a nice one and the landscape changes dramatically once we approached Albany, the scape here is very green with lots and lots of trees. There are some wineries on the way down too so we stopped at one to buy some wine for sue and david. It was so so nice to get out of the car and smell the plants and trees in the air, it was lovely, we tasted some wine in the winery cellar door and bought a couple of bottles, it was really nice in general there, we saw some people having champagne and strawberries our mouths were watering!

We arrived at sues house and it was easy to see why she is super. We had a really nice night and most importantly i slept in a real bed! Its great when you get a break from sleeping in the small bunk, and seeing as i live on the ship theres rarely a break from it! We relaxed before dinner and then had a really nice meal followed by cheese and crackers and then Amarula which was really nice.

The house was amazing, its in the bush outside Albany. Albany is a really beautiful place, its very green with loads of tall trees, ill upload some pictures. Theres a few lookouts around Albany and the views of the harbour is spectacular. While we were there the weather was nice, it was fresh and sunny but not particularly hot, which was nice in contrast to fremantle but ive gotten used to the sun now!

more stuff

oconnorclare — Sun, 6 Mar 2011 09:50:00 GMT

a funny thing happened a couple of weeks ago, i forgot to write it in here, we were in the pub one day and we had ordered some food. as we love to, we got some pate and toast. as the bosun was picking up a piece, she dropped some toast on the floor, along with the knife. i leaned down to pick it up and at the same time she reached for the knife and accidently stabbed me in the face! in reality it was only a small nick and didnt bleed for long but we like to say that she stabbed me in the face!

i apologise if that was not up to my usual story telling standards, which i am fondly known for ;) its first thing in the morning and i was on duty last night, im a little tired, last night was the first night ive had more than 5 hours sleep a night and that was because i got 6 hours! my last day off was two and a half weeks ago, which is why im really looking forward to tomorrow because i have 4 days off in a row! its going to be great.

yesterday on the sailings we had record breaking day! on the leeuwin II we have five permanent crew, yesterday four of us were women! it was quite funny, the chef was the only man! its nice when we can get up and have 'the man' cook us bacon and egg on toast and fab meals all the time. so the Captain, engineer, mate and bosun were all girls.

over the last week or so since i wrote ive been thinking of stuff that i must put in here and now that im writing i cant think of any of it! as i said earlier ive been working alot so i havent been up to much. a couple of nights ago i went for a walk to get some fresh air, the weather has been really humid and hot the last couple of days so a few of us walked out to a lighthouse near here, it was lovely. its out on a manmade spit so its exposed, theres a nice breeze out there and you can see part of fremantle all lit up, during the day as we pass it on the way in, people are always sitting on the rocks there and fishing off it. its cool.

i dont know if i mentioned this in the last entry but the last 3 weeks or so have been record breaking here in that its been above 30 degrees every day! the other day it was above 40 degrees, every day i end up saying 'god, its hot today!'.

Long time!

oconnorclare — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:33:00 GMT

Its been a reeeeally long time since ive written here, but im back! Im just on a day off and its great. I did a bit of shopping and a few things i needed to do. Had a haircut, went for a massage, it was a good day. Now im sitting in front of a tv watching that 70s show.

Its been really hot here this week, proper hot, it makes you so tired when you try to do anything.

Last week i was away for the week on a voyage, we had about 30 teenagers sail training, it was a really long week and ive been so tired after it! Its been fairly hectic since too so its been nice to have a day off. Last night we just watched tv and ate lovely pate and cheese. Good times!

Today when i was having a massage there was a girl there doing this detox thing where you stick your feet in a basin of water and the water goes brown, or brownish, i think theres some colours (of brown) relating to parts of your body so the guy said that she had some toxins in her liver, to which she said ‘but i don’t even smoke!?’!

I wrote that a week or so ago and at the time i really had nothing much to say, i realised after i wrote it that i actually had no news since i was constantly working and feeling a little burnt out from it. We had had quite a hard week of it at work and i was so glad to get a day off and just lounge around and do nothing at all, it was sweet! So even though i have been working away all this week i think that day off and couple of nights in front of the tv did me good. The first night the two girls from work called up when they were finished and we ate cheese and pate on toast with wine and it was magic. Thats one thing i love about here, people eat cheese and pate all the time, you go to someones house for beers and instead of crisps and peanuts they have pate! The queen mary 2 was in fremantle that day and there was lots of excitement around her, there was so many people around to see her, there was a nice buzz there. i went for a bit of a walk on my day off too along the river and its really beautiful there, ill have to go back and take some photos.

There was a boat show that weekend too so freo was quite busy, as were we. It was a nice weekend though, our sails were full and everyone was interested in participating so it was nice. I spent the weekend on the helm teaching people how to steer the ship. The weather was really nice for it too, unlike today, which is a glorious day but its probably the hottest since i arrived and very humid, its unreal.

I had a day off again during the week and got a few things sorted, we were going to go to a wine bar and relax over a couple of glasses but it wasn’t open Monday nights unfortunately. Funnily enough before that we were walking into a bar for one and another one of the lads from work called me in the street, he was just back from Sydney and was meeting another fella, we all went there in the end and had an impromptu night of fun! Actually i had to leave early as i was so tired, i had a couple of drinks and some food and i was ready for bed! I hadn’t slept a proper night in over a week but luckily 2 nights ago i got ten hours and that did the trick. I think it was because we got fish and chips take away and i got battered prawns in coconut with chips and really good coleslaw and i was so full i fell into a food induced coma!

Everywhere i go in the world i have a problem explaining my surname to people, they always ask about capital letters, and commas and spaces, so imagine my surprise when i come all the way to Australia and no one really has any questions. It didn’t occur to me for a while until i realised its a big name over here. The architect who built fremantle port was an irish man called Charles yelverton o’connor. So theres actually a place here called o’connor in fremantle, i have been there! Theres also a jetty just next to us called o’connor landing. Thats the first time i heard of it!

Another thing i forgot to write about before, for all you home and away lovers is, i am proud to say that i have been to TAFE!!! I did a course there for work. I have to say it didn’t quite live up to the expectations, for years on H&A we have been hearing about TAFE and i thought it would be something amazing but it was just like CIT but not as big! I should get a picture of myself outside it!

i ve been bad enough for taking pictures so ill upload some soon to here again. ill write again soon xxx

Days off

oconnorclare — Sun, 6 Feb 2011 23:45:00 GMT

This week has been nice, the weather has been good, very windy though, my eyes are sore from it! the sailing has been good too. I took over as Engineer here this week so its all go. I had Thursday and Friday off which was lovely so I decided to be a tourist and see the place. I did a bit of shopping, or alot of shopping which was great, bought the obligatory Ugg boots and all that. It was a really nice day, very relaxing and i just wandered into all the shops ive been passing all the time and some i didnt even know were there!

there are loads of bookshops here, mostly second hand, and they are lovely, i was browsing in one the other day, and the owner was asking me where i was from and if i was living here. i was about to say i was only here for a while and that i was on holiday but then i realised, that in fact, i do live here! its great!

i got onto Jen Peterson during the week (for those of you that know her), so I met herself and her boyfriend for dinner which was very nice, we went for a drink to the Sail and Anchor, its a pub that has alot of different types of beer, they gave us this peach beer which was really nice, so we had one there and went away home.

Friday, I did much the same, just wandered around. then i went for a drink and dinner with one of the girls here, it was a glorious day, we sat out in the sun, then we went for ice cream and all! we were home by half eight, were like grannies here half the time!

Photos: Oz 2011

oconnorclare — Wed, 2 Feb 2011 23:15:00 GMT

My First Voyage

oconnorclare — Wed, 2 Feb 2011 10:18:00 GMT

on the ship at the moment we do a couple of day sails each day roughly and then again, roughly we do about two voyages a month. the day sails are for the general public, to come on board for 3 hours, sail around, help setting sails, climb, steer and relax. its quite nice. the voyages are the sail training bit, which is the main purpose of the ship. so about 40 teenagers, 5 permanent crew (thats me!) and 8 volunteers (to sail the ship and be watchleaders) set sail for a week to teach the teenagers how to sail, here they learn lots i think, its fairly cool if your 15 and your climbing 30metres off the deck up the main mast, at sea. not much seems too hard after that!

the thing i found most interesting about the voyage was the way the kids interacted with each other, it was like being back in school, but this time im the old teacher! the 'cool guys' seemed to get together, as with the messers, and the cool girls and the retro girls, it was gas.

the first couple of days of the voyage most of the kids were sick, some were really seasick, just lying on the deck for a couple of days! inbetween sleeping, on the third day almost everyone just picked up and it was good. i thought the sailing was great before then, it was a pity they were so sick. we then we sailed around for the rest of the week, they had an afternoon on rottnest island which is where i went cycling, its beautiful there. during the week they do lots of activities, teamwork exercises, sailing, climbing, its good fun.

on the last night there was a show that they put on for everyone, where they could do whatever they wanted on stage, some of them were really funny.

Speaking Australian

oconnorclare — Wed, 2 Feb 2011 00:09:00 GMT

One of the best things about this place is the language. Australians abbreviate EVERYTHING! i always thought it was something that they used to just put on tv, for alf stewart fans, but it is real. now there are still some things that i havent heard, namely 'fair dinkum', thats about the only one at the moment, some i have heard and some frequently used sayings are:

flaming (not flaming galah though), strewth, rack off, darl(darling), mungrel, chook(chicken), cockie(cockatoo or cockroach), no worries mate, rottnest island is called rotto, rockingham is called rocco, how ya going, g'day,

another thing i find funny here is the way lots of people walk around the place not wearing any shoes at all. in the supermarket, walking down the street, its not unusual to find people not wearing shoes, and this in the country with all the poisonous and dangerous animals, insects and reptiles!

another is the noise level, everyone speaks quite loudly, im kind of drowned out alot, so many people have come up and said 'you are sooo quiet!', people speak louder but lots of people talk together and rush to get in what they want to say. its cool, ill just have to raise my voice level, by the time i get home i will be shouting at you all!

Lots of stuff

oconnorclare — Tue, 1 Feb 2011 23:27:00 GMT

Wow, its been two weeks since i wrote, i cant believe it. i have the excuse that i was away for a week on a voyage, it seems ages ago. since then i have been working and trying to organise myself a bit more, moving cabin, preparing to take over as engineer, doing my engineering exam to get my certificate, that went well anyway luckily! i eventually bought an internet dongle so that i could write in my blog more often and send more emails and i barely used it since i got it! ill probably work backwards while i think of what i have done.

so im on duty tonight on the ship which means that i cant leave the ship for 24 hours. i found out today that i have two days off on thursday and friday so i must get looking to see whats to be done around here for a couple of days, the problem with the western coast is that, while it looks so close and accessible on the map, it is actually hours and hours to get anywhere! but hopefully ill find something and have a nice couple of days.

i had a day off yesterday so i went into perth for a while, there are lots of volunteers and people that work here and pass through. so it ended up that myself and one of the guys headed into perth, on the train we happened across another one of the 'leeuwin family' so the three of us went to see the sights of perth, we didnt get very far before we found a watering hole, and had a 'magners irish pear cider' on a deck overlooking the swan river, it was lovely. pear cider allegedly tastes like 'lolly water', whatever that is! we went back on our merry way then, saw a bit of the city and had a nice meal of pizza and zubrovka vodka and apple juice, aptly named 'the apple pie', quite nice.

i spent my first australia day here which was nice, but again, i hadnt checked the roster and didnt realise i had two days off together, so i really just ended up hanging around. it was a beautiful day, we were here in the morning and doing some work on deck, so we saw all the small boats, loads of them coming in the river to go up to perth and see the fire works. there was a good buzz around the city, i decided to walk around and sample the atmosphere, there was a few shops open so i wandered in and out of them, bought a dress that i will never wear here! and then i bumped into another volunteer from the ship, sat a while and chatted to them. as i was contemplating dinner one of the lads working here called me so i got a couple of beers and headed over there for a while, we sat watching tv, which is the biggest luxury, having tv and a comfy couch, theres nothing like that here. then we went to the pub for a while. i had a nice australia day.

there was a cyclone warning the other day and we were waiting for it to hit fremantle, it was coming from up the coast, it kept getting weaker and later times expecting it to arrive, but obviously we couldnt go out sailing if it was here, it didnt hit so we went out the next day sailing, in the morning the sea was flat calm and there was not a puff of wind, it was a lovely day and we just ambled around. we went out for the afternoon sail and as soon as we passed the breakwater, the wind was brilliant and we had a really good sail, the trouble was that because of the wind and the waves, the ship was moving quite a bit and there was people getting sick everywhere! it was a really good day for sailing though, the best ive seen since the voyage i went on last week. that was the extent of the cyclone in freo(fremantle, more abbreviations!)

there has been a ship on the berth across from us this week and its so fascinating! its a cattle/sheep carrier...i just googled this ship to see which it was and i found a bizarre thing, there are lots of webistes, eg. vesel tracker, marine traffic, that follow the ship, and they have pictures of it here across from me this week! infact theres one this week and one pic from 2009 in the same place but with a different company name on the side, they even give, sometimes, a fairly indept description of the ship and its purpose. strange!...anyway back to the story, this ship is a cattle carrier, its got 7 decks above the deck which are all open to the envirnoment by the look of it, im sure they must be gridded, they have lights all down each one so at night it looks cool, you should google it to see the pic, and up the side of the decks are two walkways connecting all decks, but the point is that lots of us who have seen it just find in mesmerising! i dont know what it is about it, the thought of maybe thousands of poor scared cows tramping up the walkways to spend possible weeks in the wind and cold, not knowing whats going on! it must get really smelly and scary in there!

Day off

oconnorclare — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 20:55:00 GMT

today i had a day off and i decided to spend it wisely and go to Rottnest island for the day. what a day i chose! it was 37 degrees, so obviously i hired a bike to cycle around the island. even though i started off at 10am, it was soon evident i had not cycled a bike in 10 years and i now have a really sore ass thanks to the most uncomfortable saddle in the world!

the island on the other hand is amazing, ive heard so many people talking about it and its all true, it is green, turquoise and blue waters, with gentle waves lapping onto white sand, small beaches under huge sloping dunes. there is a road around the perameter of the island but i did not see one car on the island, its a nature reserve, there is a shuttle bus that stops regularly so you can get around without a bike but cycling really is the way to go. theres bikes everywhere there. i was a little worried at the start that if i left it at the top of the entrance to a beach that it might disappear but the thing is that, unless someone had a bike to get there, then they wouldnt be there to rob it anyway! i stopped at one beach called parakeet beach i think, it was really beatuiful, lots of yachts and motor boats anchored maybe 20 metres off the beach and ppl just coming in swimming and sunbathing. i went for a swim there, it was so refreshing, then threw my clothes back on and continued my journey!

were going out on a voyage tuesday and i dont think ill be on here tomorrow so after a week at sea with 40 teenagers and the crew im sure ill have plenty of stories! we have been out sailing the last couple of days, day sails around fremantle, we sail out for 3 hours and come back in, with up to 130 passengers, its nice. the only problem is that theres food for the passengers and theres alwyas some left over, ill be fat as a fool soon! im slowly, or not so slowly really, learning the ropes (pardon the pun!) so hopefully ill master the sailing side of the ship too before i leave. ill be climbing and stuff tomorrow so that should be cool.

yesterday on the sail there was an ex merchant navy captain on the sail, he was there to steer the ship, as helmsman, this guy started talking to him and was really amazed that the captain, on his sea travels had visited liverpool, where this man was from! he was so excited that he came over to tell me, not realising where i was from, upon hearing my accent he was extatic altogether! not only had he met an australian who had been to liverpool, he was now talking to an irish woman in australia! and not only that, he had been to cork before too! how unbelievable! then we (as in the work crew, not me and this man!) went out for a quick drink after work and we met this girl from liverpool too, unreal! ah no, he was a nice man but i couldnt get away! i also met an irish couple who had moved here 28 years ago, he was from rochestown road.

im reading bill brysons book 'down under' now, its very good, i like his writing, hes very witty. i bought a lonely planet book the other day too so i must start going through that and see where i want to go. so much possibility! any recommendations let me know! i really want to get the india pacific line from perth to sydney, that would be cool. the only thing is that its very expensive. ill have to see what i can do!

australians are funny in the way that they have developed their own language from english! they use so many abbreviations and slang words that i have to think twice! i cant think of any examples right now but ill write them in when i think of them.

Every day life

oconnorclare — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:52:00 GMT

well its been a while since i wrote, and right now i cant think of anything interesting that i have done!

im doing a first aid course for work today and tomorrow, nothing exciting there. the only funny thing was that when we were talking about CPR the instructor was saying that you do the compression to 1/3 chest depth, obviously this is the depth of your chest cavity, or maybe not so obviously! this guy in the class actually asked her, 'but how do you know whats one third, like, you have a really big chest but someone else might not', (she did have really big boobs). what a lunatic! ya you do CPR to 1/3 the depth of your boob!

yesterday i had a medical for work, luckily i left early incase i had any trouble finding the place i was told to go for it which was 5 minutes up the road, but when i got there the girl in the job agency that was there told me the medical centre hadnt been there for a few years! so when i rang and found out where it actually was it turned out it was 25 minutes walk away! it was 37 degrees yesterday and i had 20 minutes to make it there, obviously i arrived a state! but i was only 5 minutes late and it was fine, so that all went well, another thing sorted. came back and then yesterday evening i went for a beer with some people from work, it was nice but i felt a bit tired this morning and i was actually in bed early, must be getting old!

so i dont think ive written in a week or so and i cant remember what ive been doing, just trying to organise some paperwork and stuff, almost there, just have to book the dreaded oral exam and once thats over with ill be free to just live and work in Fremantle!

were going out on my first voyage next tuesday, so far there is just day sailings, which i havent been on either yet. i moved onto the ship the other day so its grand, im staying in a spare cabin for now and ill move into the engineers cabin at the start of feb when i take over fully. my cabin is tiny but its grand, suits me fine.

the last few days ive been just walking around fremantle, seeing loads of new roads and stuff. i found a leisure centre and pool so that should be cool, ill start going to a few fitness classes and swimming soon so im looking forward to that. id say im walking miles every day, i havent been without a car for so many years! ill probably buy a bike here someday too, that should be cool, bring me back to my youth! god, i used to cycle everywhere when i was 15.

fremantle is cool, i dont think ive ever been in a place with so many cafes and restaurants! they are everywhere. theres a really nice looking little wine bar next to here, i must go there some night, they serve cheese platters and stuff. its lovely too here the way the sun is alyways shining, it is very hot some days but then the evenings are lovely and balmy so you can sit out and stuff.

i went into perth the other day, it was nice, i just walked around and saw places in teh centre of the city, i was wandering around the clothes shops, i dont know why as i have no money to be spending on clothes! im broke, ill get paid in two weeks so i really have to become thrifty till then! i think most of what i needed to buy i have now so i shouldnt be too bad, but i think i said that last week and im still spending!

Almost a week!

oconnorclare — Sun, 9 Jan 2011 16:25:00 GMT

It seems i have been here almost a week now and time is flying by. settling in grand now at this stage and getting to know the place better. i havent written in a few days so ill start and work back.

Well, first of all i got my bag back which is brilliant! have managed to avoid having to shop for stuff and trying to find a camera charger etc. that was here last night when i got back, i was so delighted to see it i hugged the night porter guy, id say he didnt know what to do!

so the day before yesterday i went down to work to organise a few things, then in the afternoon we went out sailing for the night, we sailed out of fremantle and around the north of rottnest island where we sailed around for the night. it was really cool, its a big barquentine sailing ship with 16 sails and 55 metres long, there was about 29 of us there, i just watched and tried to stay out of the way! the weather was beautiful and i managed to get sunburned through all the layers of suncream i had on! obviously i never thought to wear a hat and got burned on my head! during the night a cray pot line got stuck in one of the propellers, so the next day we had to anchor and two of the lads got out the snorkelling gear and took the RIB down, they took turns diving down to cut the ropes off, it took ages as there was so much of it there! and one of them lost his wedding ring in the process :( when we came back, there was a BBQ, actually it was fish and chips and beer in the end. so we had a few beers there and headed into town for another, by this stage it was way past my half past eight bed time! so at that stage i left and came back here, where, when checking my mail i was reunited with my lovely possessions! then the nightporter, presumably shocked by the hug came in and said that himself and the irish fellas were going for a drink so i went with them for one in rosie o gradys, where else! came back here to the music blaring and a full dorm of girls, the mess in that room is unreal! im moving out in the morning so im just after sorting out all my own stuff for the big move down the road! i just went shopping for shampoo etc too since my reliable little travel size guys have served me well and disappeared!. its great having an excuse to shop!

so apart from the sailing, im not sure what else i have been doing that is of any interest. ive been basically finding out where everything is, all that kind of thing.

i just looked out the window and there is an old classic ford convertible motor car outisde, gleaming red in the sun, with cream leather seats and a sparkling silver engine. its lovely. i must go and take some pictures now that i have the camera charger back.....

Getting settled

oconnorclare — Thu, 6 Jan 2011 19:13:00 GMT

So today i went to work and started to sort out my paperwork, bank accounts etc. was finished that by lunch ish so then i went for a walk around town and down by the beach and marina. the weather is beautiful, not too very hot with a nice breeze.

i sat in the park on the way home and read my book, 'three ways to capsize a boat' (thanks una!). it was beautiful just sitting there listening to everything, sounds of a jackhammer in the distance, children playing, clinking cuttelry in the park cafe, boys shouting, girls laughing. all while i sat in the shade of the massive trees there. i dont know what they are but they are huge, and obviously really old. fremantle is an old port town and its really beautiful, the building facades are preserved on a huge amount of them which is lovely.

as i said i will put up some pics eventually, but not for a while, if i dont get my bag back then i will have no camera charger and so will have to select my pictures for a while till i can sort something out!

yesterday i had a nice day too, was still lonely yesterday morning but once i set about actually doing something (which reminded me that i actually had a purpose other than sitting in a hostel for the next 12 months with no friends and nothing to do)it was good. i got some clothes anyway and some work gear, and generally wandered around finding out the most direct routes to get to the shops etc instead of following the map and taking tiwce as long!

last night i had a couple of beers in the hostel with the lads here, im still a bit jet lagged so i made it to 8pm before i sloped off to bed! good going by the previous standards. i managed to read till nine and only woke this morning at about 7, woo hoo! theres a bbq on here tonight so ill have to see how i manage for that.

First days

oconnorclare — Wed, 5 Jan 2011 18:21:00 GMT

Ok, ive decided to give this a go but i dont have regular internet access so we will see how it goes! also im no literary genius so ill need a while to get into the swing of it! forgive me if its only nearly as good as one of my stories!

ive arrived in fremantle safely, less one bag though, luckily ive brought some clothes in my handluggage. a bit lonely, tired and hot but it can only get better!

the flights were ok, quite uneventful, flew via kuala lumpur, and arrived in perth. waited for my bag, which didnt arrive so i filed a report and went to get the bus to fremantle. Two hours later I got on the bus and found the hostel. the bus driver was a chatty australian lady who LOVED irish people, because were so much fun.

the last couple of days have just been a haze of sleeping, noise and heat. the temperature was 37 degrees yesterday. it was minus ten at home last week. the hostel im staying in is lovely and really homely but i think it is the noisiest place ever! if its not the music blaring till two am its the pub next door throwing all their bottles in the bin, or the bin lorry at 0600, im still jet lagged though so it doesent bother me.

there was two girls in the room when i arrived, theyre nice, one left today. i was supposed to go to the beach yesterday with her and i went to sleep for 'half an hour'and woke up three hours later!

this morning it poured rain unbelievably. i was sitting on the balcony talking to an irish fella and we felt like we were home! it stopped then which was good as i needed to go out and buy a few things and it also took the temperature away till the clouds cleared so it was good. so today i went and bought some stuff since my bag is still missing.

i went to see the boat ill be working on, its cool, ill get some pictures soon. im starting work tomorrow so hopefully it will settle soon and ill feel right at home! ill write more about that next time.