21/4/01
Caroline and I have been in Perth now for just over two months and it has been a mixed time for us. Firstly we were over the moon to be here in a land that we could relate to and as an added bonus every one speaks English (well almost). We were met by an old uni friend of my Sophie who is an absolute star, she booked us into a lovely place and showed us around for a day or two, she also introduced us to the famous Sunday night session that they have down here which basically entails going to the beach and then going to the pub and drinking all evening. As Caroline put it, we had come across most of the Australian stereo types in one day. Within a week we found ourselves a cool place to live with a Kiwi guy called Robbie who is a diamond geezer. The house was great and the spa pool was better though the fact that the house backed onto a park means that the house is prone the burglary, bye bye my rucksack, my shades and worst of all Caroline's most expensive item ever, her digital camera. We were so upset you have no idea, after months of trying to fix it and whamo some aboriginal smack head steals it, yeah the police caught him in the end, he came back for another go and we nabbed the GIT, but alas Caroline's camera was long gone, hence the lack of photos,CHEERS MATE!
Whilst having to deal with all that we had to get down to job hunting which was a new one for the pair of us. We stumbled into it so innocently, our CVs were the god honest truth so when an employer asked for 3 years experience we thought ourselves grossly underqualified. How wrong we were, here in Perth employers seem to think that one has to have had at least 2 years experience to do anything, it is beyond a joke, "Coffee Maker wanted, must have had 3 years experience", "Chicken feeder must be fully qualified and have a minimum of 3 years experience". So by all accounts my degree is useless here and I should have been making coffee or feeding chickens. We only really worked out that to get anywhere here one has to play dirty. So now we are fully qualified chicken, cow, sheep zebra, you name feeders, we have worked in more bars than is humanly possible and picked more fruit than your average human would eat in 4 life times. You name it we have seen it, greeted it, served it, made coffee for it, picked it and filed it, in nearly ever city in the world. I now have three different CVs each tailored for each industry because if I put it all into one I would have to be 50 for all the years experience to add up.
So anyway after all that rubbish Caroline joined an admin agency and I became a cycle courier, which basically meant Caroline worked in an office and I rode around town as fast as I could delivering from office to office. I have to say it, it has been the best job I have ever had, not only do you get to see the city but you get seriously fit at the same time, or in my case your knee packs up. So from there Caroline and I both joined a hospitality agency which has been great, now we have been able to go into the major buildings of Perth and see them from the inside. We have served at Perth Concert Hall, Government house, Perth Hospital and Subiaco Oval (where they have the footie games). It has been fun but now we are on the move again. We have bought ourselves a van, a Toyota Hiace to be precise, and now that Caroline has fitted it with a new carpet and curtains and I have fixed a few things and cleaned the engine there is no stopping us. We are going down south to pick yet more fruit, have no fear we are old hands at it, apparently, and then we will go east to Melbourne and then Sydney by the 1st of June where we will stay for three months. We will surf all the way, we exchanged my bike for surfboard, bodyboard and fins so we are fully kitted up and ready to go.

Well we have finally got around to developing our photos, so here are some of our aussie pics.
The Subiaco oval were we worked occasionally
Steve and Robbie

The amazing Perth skyline
A couple of pictures from our weekend down in Margaret River with Steve and Amy, sleeping out in our new(!) van for the very first time. Yes, the novelty did wear off!


Introducing....The Beast



Perth to Sydney Sydney   Lizard Island   Sydney to Byron Bay   Byron Bay to Cairns