HollyandPhil

England

philandholly — Fri, 6 Apr 2007 00:50:00 GMT

We are back in England for one month if anyone wants to get into contact with us we are using our old mobile phone numbers and our parents know where we are so give us a ring!!!!!!!

We would also like to thank everyone we have stayed with and all our new friends in Australia for making the last year an amazing experience - We will be back in May so lookout!!!!!

Phil and Holly

Update

philandholly — Mon, 8 Jan 2007 18:48:00 GMT

Well now i've got the mango sap out of my system and i'm a bit happier with life it may be good to update people on our goings on.

We left the damn mangos before chritmas and are still chasing money they owe us but that is out of sight and therefore mind. We left Townsville and headed south on the open road once again and got as far as Proserpine for an overnight stop. From there we drove to Mackay for the new year hoping for a fairly big town so that we could join in the celebrations with the locals in the town square or similar. They were organising a street party and it all looked good for us to walk into the town and enjoy our new year. The rain started that afternoon and didn't stop until the next morning and it fell down. We didn't feel like going to the street party and so sat a little dejected under a tarp by the van getting steadily drunk and yawning at each other until midnight when we ventured out of our shelter to watch a few intrepid fireworks before climbing into bed. We packed up our soggy camp and drove on to Marlborough the next day before moving again to The Caves just above Rockhampton. The limestone Caves and ajoining caravan park were good value for money and the wildlife was rather tame and cheeky - we found the roo's had practicaly moved into the campers kitchen area.

The next day we moved on into Rockhampton which is where we are still. We are staying with Pete and Barb who have been kind enough to put us up for a while. I used to work for them for about two weeks and we frequented their pub in England for a lot longer. So far we have taken in the Heritage Village showing life as it would have been in the early days of Australia and played a round of golf (five holes) at the local course where Pete and Barb now work. We have also taken in the Botanical gardens and seen the Kershaw gardens. The gardens and attached zoo are all free to enter and are run very well. There are still the beaches and inland Emerald where you can fossik for saphires still to do among other things so its really nice to have a base to explore the area from before we head south to Brisbane and Barney.

F@#K the Mangoes!

philandholly — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 18:42:00 GMT

Well after a long stint in Bowen packing tomatoes we decided to go with some friends up to Townsville. (Wrong way of course as we should be heading south.) The tomatoes would have been fine but the hours were a little low due to their season coming to an end. We decided that by going to Townsville we would have christmas with some friends and stay in a house and do some work on the Mangoes as they have a six week season that is full on and money can be earned very easily.

GOOD IDEA AY!!!!!! AY!!!!!!!!AY!!!!!!!AYYYYYYY!!!!!!! was it BOLLOCKS!

Now the pickers start at six and work until four with two half hour breaks. You get paid $15.50 an hour and you basically work as if you are on contract work. (quickly) They drive purpose built machinery up the rows and four guys go on each side and place the fruit on the machine (Throw) and it gets washed and put in boxes to take to the shed. Theres not much shade and its hard work. What people will idly tell you is that mangoes are hard work and they will roll their eyes at you and shake their heads when you mention you may work picking them. What they don't inform you about is that mango sap is at the far end of the ph scale of alkalines. This means that it causes caustic burns. I did two days picking and have been to hospital twice. The sap has given me a whole body rash that itches 24/7. It has also burnt my feet and put blisters on my ankles. Also my lower legs and feet have swollen up so it looks like i don't have any ankles. This doens't happen to everyone but be aware that if you don't feel right you are not right and you should leave the area immediately. I have been informed that it wil take two weeks for my body to return to normal. Thats two weeks of sleepless nights. High power anti histimines during the day and night do help and chemists can prescribe them over the counter BUT do not take 3 Phenergan at once as i was told to do as you won't get up the next day. So should you wish to earn money working the mangoes i suggest a shed job or your head checked.

You have been warned travel safe.

Gallery: Bowen Tomatoes

philandholly — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:47:00 GMT

Todds farm Bowen

Tomatoes

philandholly — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:20:00 GMT

Hey don't know if anyone still checks this to see what we are doing but here goes anyway. Pulled into Bowen after dropping Rosie off at the airport and taking a detour to Mission Beach as we wanted to chill out again before seeking work. We finally pulled ourselves away from the beach and struck out southwards towards Bowen hoping to score some sort of seasonal work there as we had as usual seriously depleted funds.

So coasting into Bowen on vapour we checked at the information centre about the possibility of work in the area, this was when we met the most negative women in the world - No you won't find work, NO its alllll finished, NO NOWHERE TO STAY!!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! So feeling a little dejected we went around the farms and drove past hundreds of 'No labour required' signs. There were three possible places for work and one of the them said they would phone the next day. He called that night and we got work the next day in a tomato shed and haven't looked back. We haven't made amazing money as at times the work has been a bit here and there as its the end of the season, but we have managed the work entitlement for the working visa and it looks like we're staying here for another three weeks. So the good news is that we get to come back next year. Shed work may not pay so well but it is more comfortable than slogging away in a field - From now on its shed work all the way! The other good thing about the job is the free accomodation so we have spoilt ourselves with power, hot showers and only four neighbours (20 if you count the frogs that seem to enjoy living in the toilets and shower). We all get on well (apart from the frogs who keep getting evicted) and have communal dinners (piss ups!)every other night and watch movies sometimes on a computer sitting under the mango trees hoping they don't fall on us! (very surreal!)

Still will be good to catch up with peep's when we get home so stay well and catch ya soon!

Gallery: Great Barrier Reef

philandholly — Mon, 2 Oct 2006 11:44:00 GMT

Our day on GBR with Rosie

Rosie's Trip

philandholly — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:31:00 GMT

We drove from Kununurra to Darwin after spending some time with some friends. We had plenty of time to pick up Rosie from the airport, in fact we had so much time we managed to get two of our tyres changed as they were totally shot from the Gibb River Road. The Gibb River Road is an unsealed track which is around 700 km long and something of an achievement for travellers. We also found a cool free camp on a world war two airstrip just outside the town, which was helpful as we were suffering from depleted funds!

We managed to pick up Rosie and then Barney from Darwin with no problems and headed for Kakadu National Park where we stayed for the next week. The national park was full of aboriginal rock art and wading birds and we took a great boat trip and got to see many of them close up along with some crocs! We even had a campground manager who we had to chase to pay our fees and who would turn up at odd moments brandishing his machette!!

We went back to Darwin to deliver Barney to his flight but not before he insisted on paying for us all to go on a sunset cruise around Darwin harbour. Our thanks to Barn as it was probably the highlight of our time with him.

We then relaxed in Litchfield national park for a few days doing plenty of swimming in the plunge pools and breaking the exhaust on the car yet again! Litchfield was an amazing experience and we were camping literally 100 yds from 'Wangi Falls', a breathtaking waterfall and large refreshing plunge pool below. There were tropical rainforest walks with a dense green canopy high above us creatign a cool green tunnel - a great refuge from the heat of the midday sun! We ended up staying for about a week and introduced Rosie to snorkelling, helping her fear of fish! We will definately go back next year!

We then decided to make a dash for the East coast with Rosie as she wanted to see the beaches before going home (you couldn't swim at the beaches in the Northern Territory as there were crocs everywhere!). We nipped through the fairly boring Northern Territory towns and entered Queensland fairly quickly. We have now been touring up and down the coast in and out of the rain. We finally made our home at Mission Beach and are camping literally on the beach and paying hardly a thing for the view. Tomorrow we take off for Cairns to do a Great Barrier Reef trip, snorkelling etc. This will mark the end of Rosie's trip to Australia with us and even though we keep trying to make her stay she won't! She does promise to come back and see us next year though!

Gallery: Coral Bay - Gibb River Road

philandholly — Tue, 8 Aug 2006 13:42:00 GMT

Our adventures since leaving Carnarvon

Update - Now in Kununarra

philandholly — Tue, 8 Aug 2006 13:08:00 GMT

Well as usual we aren't keeping this thing up to date very often!

We left Carnarvon ages ago and have been snorkelling along the Ningaloo reef at Coral Bay - pricey and congested and we have been to the other end of the reef in Exmouth where we spent a week in the Yardie Homestead Caravan park to hide from all the little kiddies that were on their holidays!!! You could enter the reef from the beach at the national park there and it was so good to do the same as we did in Coral Bay without it costing us anything. Managed to bump into a dutch couple from Carnarvon and had a cool day with them just snorkelling and sitting on the beach. From there we went to a mining town called Karatha and we stocked up on food and went to another national park called Millstream. We intended to stay the one night and move on to the more famous Karijini national park but because it was so nice at Millstream we spent a week there and the camp hosts wanted to adopt us because we could drink so much wine each night! - Pretty wierd reason but then so were they!

From there we travelled to Tom Price and on into the Karijini national park where you could explore the gorges and do walks down into ice cold pools of water and you would have to climb up and down knotted rope to get in and out of certain areas! Good fun but our muscles hurt for days afterwards through all of the scrambling around!!

We saw the worlds biggest open cut mine in Newman before heading back towards the cost stopping off at Marble Bar which wasn't a very interesting town and with no evident industry to support its 100 or so inhabitants. I celebrated my birthday there in the Iron Clad Hotel and in the caravan park we met camel catchers and gold prospectors on their holidays so it was interesting to listen to them in the evenings.

Headed to Broome from there and did the tourist bit around Cable beach and learnt some about crocs at the crocodile farm there. Bumped into the dutch couple again and spent the day on the beach with them again. We liked Broome but it was pretty expensive and touristy - not so good for the budget traveller so we moved on.

After Broome we did the Gibb River road 650K's of really nasty unsealed road. Managed to break a weld on the exhast and got it fixed at a homestead there for 70 bucks. Stayed at national parks along the way and working cattle stations at the end. The national parks were cool as Winjana Gorge allowed us to view crocs in the wild, we even got within 4 metres of one. We then did Tunnel Creek which is pitch black and our torches were useless but we stumbled through there sometimes in water up to our knees in the dark with crocs and bats in there. Damn scary it was but i'm not sure if the fact that we couldn't see much was a good thing or not as it was we couldn't see the crocs so hopefully they couldn't see us and we both emerged with all four limbs so couldn't have been that bad!

Didn't get a flat tyre on the Gibb and am very proud of that as every time you mention it the locals go nuts about how many spares you were carrying and how many flats you changed and how much it cost to get the tyre fixed and on and on they go.

We are now in Kununarra and have met up with Rich and Raechel, friends from Carnarvon. They are both working but it didn't stop us being told off for making too much noise at midnight last night in the caravan park - oops!

Will stay here a few days then back track to do the Bungle Bungles in another National Park before zooming off to get Rosie from Darwin for six weeks, and see Barney for 10 days.

We are still having a great time and are well and happy. Really excited about having 3 of the 4 seager/lund kids reunited with an honoury Phil! Hope you are all well, will update soon........

Carnarvon

philandholly — Thu, 6 Jul 2006 13:43:00 GMT

Hi Everyone

We arrived in a town called Carnarvon on the west coast 2 months ago. We pulled into the Carnarvon Caravan Park for a night and on the off chance asked if there was any work available in the area. We managed to get jobs pruning grape vines for a mad old croatian couple and finally finished the job a few days ago. Carnarvon isn't a particularly amazing place but the people we have met have made the experience. There are more long term residents at the caravan park than pit stoppers which makes it like a little community where you get to know everyone. There are many "Grey Nomads" who come up from the south to escape from the winter, and also loads of backpackers working like us - surprisingly the combination works pretty well! We have been adopted by lots of old ladies who make us relish and mend our trousers, and also have a great group of mates who we drink with and hang out with in the evenings.

The end is now nigh though as everyone is finishing work and preparing to move on. The next stop will be Coral Bay and Exmouth although with the school holidays starting on Monday we are told that it gets pretty expensive and all the caravan parks, national parks and free camps fill up so there is nowhere to camp! It looks as if we have picked the worst time to move and will probably be digging bush toilets and sleeping on the side of the highway! We will let you know how it all goes as soon as we have internet access again. Having trouble uploading more photos, will try again soon. Love to everyone, H & P xxx

Gallery: Carnarvon

philandholly — Thu, 6 Jul 2006 12:59:00 GMT

First Job - 2 Months

Gallery: The First Month

philandholly — Wed, 10 May 2006 14:10:00 GMT

The First Month - Duh!

The First Week

philandholly — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 01:01:00 GMT

Hey everybody we managed to give this address to - and some we press ganged into taking!

We are still alive and its been a week so far so we must be doing pretty well. We have been staying with Tony and Trish - Holly's grandparents friends for the last week and they have helped us integrate with society and get a vehicle. Its a Toyota Land Cruiser (4litres - Gareth eat ya heart out!!!) its been taken around the country before and we got it off a couple who know the score when travelling and have kitted it out ready for the road. Its been ok'd by a mechanic and we've had a few little jobs done on it to make sure it won't let us down and are very pleased with it.

We are giving it a proper run down to denmark (a town down south 400k's) tomorrow and will let you know just how reliable it really is!!

Hope all is well in the UK as its bloody perfect here (29degrees tomorrow) don't get too depressed in your jobs at home as we will be back in a year to tell you all about it!!

Bye for now Holly and Phil

(Will stick some photos on when we get a chance)

Gallery: The first week

philandholly — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 00:56:00 GMT

Finding a vehicle