Please Excuse The RPG Analogies

Today I was baaaaaack, baaaaack, back in Ballarat, but this time I was on a quest that I had been given last week after via email.

You may remember I posted an ad on Gumtree to promote myself in an eloquent way. If you don’t remember then go back and read it again! You should start paying attention or you’ll fail your end of year exam!

And stop chewing gum!

Well that piece of genius advertising returned one result in the form of an Irish lady called Noreen. Noreen runs a cafe in Ballarat and she emailed me with a handy tip, her neighbour knows somebody who is looking for workers at his potato packing place.

Brilliant! Quest accepted: Talk to Noreen in person

I would meet Noreen today at her cafe and then, in the usual RPG style, I would have to talk to her neighbour after talking to her. Noreen’s neighbour was a mysterious gentleman by the name of Bryth , he had a Jack Russell dog and as I knocked on the door he bellowed ‘COME IN, LAD!’

After some dialogue he would eventually give me a cryptic message that would ultimately lead me to the potato packing shed in a town called Wallace

OOOOOH YEEEAH

But how did Noreen find my ad? Well, Bryth is friends with the owners of various farms including a Christmas tree plantation and Ray Gregory’s potato packing shed. Alan Gregory (son of Ray) asked Bryth if he knew of anybody who might need a job, Bryth then asked next door if they knew anybody who would need a job as they had relatives etc. . Noreen (from next door) happened to be looking on Gumtree one day when she stumbled upon my ad (labelled as ‘Ballarat’ in the location box) and got in touch.

Bryth would tell Alan that I would be there later in the day to talk jobs as Simon was at work and Bryth didn’t have a phone number for me to call. I gave him my number to pass onto the Gregorys and that was that.

Objective complete: Talk to Bryth

New Objective: Return to Noreen

Noreen had asked me to come back to the cafe once I had spoken to Bryne, so I did. I received a free coffee for turning in the quest which gave me a small stat boost (Energy +5). Then I received an optional quest line, Noreen asked me if I ‘had any cafe experience?’ to which I replied ‘No, but I have worked in a pub for a while’, which was true as I had completed the ‘work in a pub’ achievement ages ago which gave me +9 to my Customer Service stat, but it wasn’t enough so I failed that speech option. Noreen said ‘OK, are you any good with a shovel?’ I chose the option <Exaggerate> ‘Yes, I haven’t done a lot else since getting to Gordon’. Noreen then gave me the optional quest ‘Ask a nearby site office if they need any labourers’ and marked the location on my map (showed me the site at the end of the street)

Objective Complete: Return to Noreen

New Objective: Talk to Gregory at Wallace

If I did choose to pursue the optional quest, Noreen mentioned she could rent a room above the cafe.

So I had exhausted that quest hub for now and had to wait for Simon to finish work as he was my fast travel option, plus the packing shed was on the road back towards Gordon.

With a fair few hours to kill I got my hair cut (+20 Charisma) and had some lunch for an extra 150hp, then I walked up to Lake Wendouree, sat under a tree by the lake and wrote all of the above from the title to this upcoming full stop

After gaining some writing exp I decided to walk the full 6KM route around the lake (with a detour to look at the botanical garden) before walking back through Ballarat to look at things I cannot afford.

I then completed another quest, ‘Grab some shopping from Coles’ and Simon then enabled the fast travel option so we went to Wallace to find the potato packing shed.

After following the directions given, which were surprisingly accurate once we deciphered them, we found the objective and I walked up to talk to Alan Gregory. Alan seemed alright, a normal bloke that runs a packing shed. I introduced myself and it seemed Bryth had kept his word as Alan knew who I was. We talked terms and he offered a trial, two days at $14 cash per hour, then we’ll see how it goes with the promise of a wage increase if the job and I suit each other. I agreed as those two days, whatever the outcome, would give me a bit of instant income.

Objective complete: Talk to a Gregory at Wallace

New Objective: Pass the two day trial that begins on Wednesday at 7AM
(Optional: Repair a bike to go to work on)

I took the fast travel option back to Simon’s and Atti, who had been WWOOFing at the house today, had almost finished making dinner. What an interesting day. Now I’m off to save my progress by transferring it from short term to long term memory. G’night everybody!

Flowers and Rejection

I took a walk to the botanic garden this morning, partly because I wanted to see it and partly because I wanted to call some wwoofing hosts without the threat of interruption from a goon sodden Irish type. That sounds a bit harsh, I know, but I'm a bit bothered about my stagnating travels here in Melbourne and an Irish girl in our room managed to conform to the drunk and thick stereotype of her kin by forgetting her key, banging on the door at 1am, then going back out after waking up her friend (and everybody else) to help find her phone, then banging on the door at 3am because she forgot her key. Also that age old annoyance of turning the light on when the room is trying to resume sleeping is a sure fire way to insure nobody gives you sympathy when you stumble out of bed, walk into a fan and then say you have a headache. I guess it's to be expected in such a 'hostel' environment? Ahahaha...

Needless to say the wwoofing thing isn't looking too rosy. I've emailed a few places and called a few more today with all replies being of the negative persuasion. I have answered a thread post on the wwoofing website so hopefully that will yield a result.

After those bouts of rejection on the phone I walked into the Anzac shrine, a huge war memorial near the botanic garden, and took my time walking around and admiring the place and having a chance to think about just what a stupid thing humans really are sometimes. The Last Post echoed through the building as I made my way to the balcony and I must say it is an odd feeling to walk around a place of remembrance like that after developing the notion that The Great War was little more than a massive waste of life.

You're right. I wouldn't be able to capture that bird in a shot like this again if I tried.

The pillar to the right was for WW2 servicemen as the main building was opened before Hitler started to act up. The flame on the ground in front of it was lit by Queen Elizabeth II

The view from the balcony

I also re-read some war poems that I haven't seen since I was in A Level English Lit. But the poetry books at college didn't have artwork quite like this...

Picture taking and walking ensued as I wandered through the botanic garden, it is a lot larger than the one in Sydney so it took a good few hours to wander the paths. The colours and scents are, as always, able to calm one's very soul as the sun warms the air, then gets blocked by cloud, then comes out aga... Nope back to cloudy. Such is melbourne's weather.

May be worth a watch?

Scratched into some bamboo, please don't turn it into one of those lame 'inspirational' posters!

This was 'The Wind In The Willows' which is a twice daily show, but it isn't free so I didn't see it.

That's an impressive tree

Note: Doesn't taste like lamb.

Not a bad way to spend a day, though a wwoofing job would have been nice, but I'm still waiting on a few replies so fingers crossed!

Round 2 and Cockatoos!

Round 2 at the gym was Monday afternoon. It knocked me out so much I did nothing for the rest of the day, but to aid my recovery I listened to some inspirational tunage...

Tuesday proved to be a much more interesting day. After getting food for the next week (including some cheap steaks) I trotted back to the hostel to be greeted by Matteo and Alex who were waiting for Sara to go to the Botanic Gardens for a bit. I joined them and I was glad I did as after wandering around the Opera House and grabbing a cheeky beer we bumped into some cockatoos...

Flying foxes will kill you and your horse!

Fortunately, beer makes you immune to the Hendra virus

Sara took this one...

Alex took this one...

And this bugger took a chunk out of my apple!

The birds love the three amigos! (Although I don't fancy Matteo's much)

The annoying thing was I only intended to share a small piece of my apple with the birds and eat the rest myself as I was quite hungry! Unfortunately the bugger on my arm decided to chomp away at it and leave nothing for anybody else, the thieving git!

So after a bit more photo taking we headed back, Matteo went to meet a certain lady friend and me and Alex had steak before meeting Zoe (the German) and Jenna (the American) at Tokio Hotel in Darling Harbour to have a few beers and hear some live music. The music wasn't up to much but we still had a right laugh. We were later joined by our new German room mates which was nice. A few 'that's what she saids' and jokes about my 'dancing' later and we were on our way home and back in the hostel.

Tomorrow is round 3 in the gym so I'd better rest up before rising up, back on the street...