Last few days in Oz and a new job
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2006
1
101
155
Trip End
May 27, 2008
Perth,
Australia
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
The following morning I caught up with Ollie as he'd offered to make me breakfast - french toast with maple syrup and bananas - divine! The hostel owner got a phone call regarding some casual work and passed the phone to me
Amusing sign
. It was a guy that wanted to set up a book and CD stall in a huge hall in the conference centre in Perth for christmas and was fine with me only being able to work a few days. Ollie was keen to get some money quickly too so we went into the city to have a chat in person. The money was only $12 an hour which is pretty bad but it was cash in hand and 3 days of work which would pay for my nice (but expensive) hostel I was staying in. We met the owner and he was happy to have us on board.I'd been told about a restaurant in town on the waterfront that serves basic indian food and they have a 'pay what you feel it is worth' system. As we were in the area we decided to check it out - it was basic vegetables and rice but still quite nice and we ate a fair amount. We priced up how much it would cost us to make and decided on AUS$5. When we came to pay Ollie handed the money over and the owner turned to me and said 'and your contribution?'. I was quite shocked and ollie explained that $5 was our total contribution, but the owner explained that usually it's $12 for lunch. I offerred to make up the rest and he told us it was fine (with an EXTREMELY bitter and annoyed look on his face). I had originally thought $10 would be more than enough and I guess we probably hadn't thought about the cost of paying the chef and rent but it was basic food and it was buffet and not cooked to order so it would have gone in the bin anyway.......felt really bad for the rest of the day but what's the point saying you have that policy and then telling us you have a minimum charge you expect??? We then spent the afternoon sitting on the floor of the library (AKA Borders bookshop) researching the Lonely Planet Guidebooks for the next stage of our trips
Alan and a cannon
. Work for the 3 days wasn't too bad (although the music they chose to play drove us all crazy!). Pretty much stacking books onto tables and pricing CDs with a gun (great fun........for the first 1000 stickers). I met a nice French lad there (Jeromie) who also studied sport so we had some interesting conversations. The only problem with the job was that it finished late and Perth closes early - including all supermarkets and it was the first place I'd seen with no 7-11s. Ollie had offered to make me spaghetti bolognese which is one of my all time favourites but getting the ingredients was problematic and frozen burgers had to be used for the mince, however I don't know how he did it but it was one of the most amazing meals I've ever had (unfortunately he was very secretive about the recipie). Most evenings after work I watched a video in the hostel with the others and Tuesdays were great as the owner would make a desert such as apple cake and custard for free. One night I baked some ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) cookies with the recipe I'd got from the Rum Jungle cattle ranch and they went down so well I had to make them about 3 nights in a row! It was nice to have a good kitchen there where you could cook a decent meal.
Yesterday Ollie and I organised to hire some bikes and go on a vinyard tour around Swan Valley just outside of the city. We were joined by his friend Mira (from Finland?) and I had a great day sampling lots of sweet desert wines and even found some more sophisticated drier varieties I liked. I can remember that we went to Ambrook and Lancaster and The Wine Place but can't remember which were the best. The scenery was stunning and we even found a guy from Norfolk working behind the bar at one place (he'd moved here and certainly wasn't going back!)
Little Creatures bar
. The last vineyard was owned by a guy from Geneva, Ollie's home town, and once they started chatting in French about the area we were soon offered a free coffee and weren't charged for our samples. We did however then decide to buy a full glass as he'd been so nice to us. Today Alan (Scottish guy I'd been living with in Port Douglas) came and picked me up and drove us to Fremantle, a small town on the coast just south of Perth. It seemed a nice place and we had some nice pizza and gelato (probably my last for a while!) and tried some homebrewed beer and cider in Little Creatures bar which was a really nice place. When he dropped me off in the city it threw it down with rain so I couldn't do much apart from run a few errands such as posting things home and then went to hang out in the hostel for a while and finish packing.
I got the bus to the airport late as my flight wasn't until 11pm (gets into Singapore around 2am!). At check-in I was told I was over the baggage allowance (cheap budget Tiger Airways) so I put most of my heavy toiletries in my carry on. When I finally got to the last gate I was told that all my toiletries had to go in the bin as they've introduced the same policy as the UK (which I'd forgotten about as it was so long ago when I was there and I hadn't encountered it since). I asked to go back and check it in and pay the excess baggage but they said it wasn't possible as my bag would be on the plane by that point. I was pretty annoyed since the check in guy saw me put all this in my hand luggage and didn't say anything (apparently there were signs but I never read things on walls as they're usually adverts), plus I'd been through another check point and they hadn't mentioned that I couldn't take liquids on board and most of the stuff was brand new that I probably won't be able to get in Asia and I would now have to spent time shopping for them which is a chore.....not a great start to the night
Ye Olde Engalnd
. To add injury to insult I saw the bags only get put on the plane about 10 minutes before we boarded so I could have easily gone back. Just hope the flight goes smoothly. Strange to be leaving Australia. One part of me doesn't feel ready as I still have friends here and despite the ups and downs it's been good. The other side of me is somewhat bored with everything being too easy in this country and I'm looking forward to some challenging travel again, learning new languages and especially my trip over to Borneo for christmas and new year. It's also quite scary that I still don't have any onward travel plans (or flight home!) but Ollie had spoken to me about maybe meeting up in Asia and traveling for a while since we are both on the same budget and enjoy doing the same things so that's a possibility and it will be nice not to have to go hiking and biking etc on my own (plus sharing costs!).
