Last Day in St. Kilda

Today is my final day in St. Kilda as tomorrow morning I travel across the Tasman to old New Zealand. The last weekend has been good too. Drunken shenanigans on Friday night after getting my new camera,
First up, here's a drizzly day camera test

And here's what happens when the Sun goes down...

Saturday was my penultimate day at the butcher's, and thanks to a tad too much wine I was hanging. That was about it for Saturday, I did also get my New Zealand working holiday visa emailed to me, which is pretty important as I wouldn't have got too far into New Zealand without it.

Free accommodation?

Sunday was my last day at the butcher's. Nothing special really, just the odd joke about New Zealand being in a different time zone... called 1994. But I'll find out about that tomorrow evening. Today I went out in the drizzle fo shizzle and took a few last photos of what has been home for the past couple of months.

What the hell kind of statue is that?

And now I'm packed and ready to get my New Zealand on! I have still been in contact with the farm supervising job that still seems a bit weird, so soon I will find out if that was a load of bollocks or the luckiest job offer ever.

Now I'm going to continue blogging on my New Zealand blog... here

So don't forget to keep an eye on that.

Australian Adventure Comes to an End

Due to a monumental cock up, I can't get my 2nd year visa in time before my current one runs out. This means I'm off to New Zealand (Because I can't afford to go anywhere else)! This turn of events has caused a fair amount of stress, thanks to the lack of time to get sorted, the lack of funds to pay for stuff and the lack of any idea what to do when I get there.

Before work yesterday I had a good hard think about what I am going to do then I glanced over a Sunday supplement that somebody had left on a table...

Well that's spooky, or at least it would be if I was a Virgo...

Or a Scorpio...

A stark choice? These things are so vague, I have stark choices every week. Like, shall I pay for the tram or not.

I then told my boss what was happening in that this would be my final week at the butchers'. He didn't seem too bothered.

After work I proceeded to fret about money and tried to set up my NZ working holiday visa online, I then decided to do it today because those application forms are pretty long. Today I also sent off my tax return forms to an agent to sort all that out for me as I'd rather not be distracted by taxes right... oh, hang on...

Well, I just spoke to the accountant of a certain packing shed that I did some cash work for. Turns out, because I was such a good, honest, hard working guy they are willing to pay my tax (something they were really unsure of when I spoke to them a couple of days ago, you know, because tax is really annoying and they'd have to sort it if I wanted to use them for a second year visa) so I can now use the time spent there to go towards (and over) my 88 day quota for the 2nd year visa. All I have to do is sign a form tomorrow, grab a certificate and I can use it. So the cock up isn't quite as monumental as first thought. But I am going to New Zealand regardless, there I will hopefully meet my cousin Tim and his family, but as it isn't really an Awesome Australian Adventure I'm making a new blog... HERE!

I'll apply for my 2nd year Aussie visa another time because I'm going to New Zealand, in case you missed that part. So subscribe and bookmark my new blog if you want to know what I get up to when I get to New Zealand. Until then, I'll try to update any developments.

Let’s Get Boring!

Time to get serious if I don’t want to spend forever in St. Kilda, not that it’s a bad place, but I’ve only been to three states in nearly a year and money has once again become the stumbling block.

Saving won’t be easy as hours are still part time, but I’m sure if I don’t do anything at all for a few weeks I will have enough money saved in my new bank account (because my original Aussie bank, St. George, don’t have branches outside NSW).

In other news, my camera is gone (probably stolen, but the police said I can’t prove that it has actually been nicked so I have to report it as ‘lost’ instead #PoliceLogic) and I’m skint-ish, my UK accounts are running low so I need to start sending some money back to England if I want to keep my kneecaps. But that means I need to boost my income...

So suddenly my ‘awesome’ adventure is less fun and games and is leaning more towards the ‘scraping by trying to make minimum payments whilst abroad and not earning much’ adventure. But it could be worse, I could not be earning anything, or heading out to find fruit picking work only to find it has all been taken by backpackers that got there first (which has happened to a few guys from the hostel that left recently). I’m going to think up a get rich quick scheme to keep my UK accounts afloat and try and save some money for my Aussie Adventure to continue as it was about a month ago. So don't expect too many wacky tales of me doing cool stuff and taking pictures of sunsets and wallabies for a while yet, especially that last part seeing as I no longer have a decent camera.

Money Talks

I didn't starve! I got paid on Sunday and immediately paid my rent, so that's $155 gone already. Luckily it's the free sausage sizzle on Sundays so I didn't have to pay for my dinner. Then I drank a $3 bottle of awful wine before heading out with a few of the lads (and a couple of lasses) to see the last game of the current Premier League season play out at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow.

Live music and a whole lot of Irish made for a good time and watched the events on screen(s) as we all twisted our necks to keep an eye on the screens at either end of the room. Of course the really important game is the play-off final next Saturday, but for now Manchester United fans won't shut up about their 'history' and how they are still better than City because they didn't buy the title, blah blah sore losers blah,

Pictured: A bad winner

Monday I worked for 3 hours and got some free sausages! Nothing else happened. Seriously, I'm trying to save some money so no nights out for me!

Today I didn't need to work so I walked up Chapel Street and looked at things I can't afford and then bought some food (beans, pasta and tinned tomatoes FTW!). Nothing much else to talk about now (I did some laundry, but that isn't worth writing about), I'll be working for 3 more hours tomorrow and hopefully I won't be peer pressured into going out any time soon.

Grilling is my Business... And Business is Goood!

Working at the butcher's has a good advantage in the form of free, nearly off, food! Yesterday I work 3.5 hours and got 11 chicken kebab skewers, worth over $30! Sweet!

Before then I was talking with people at the hostel when waiting to go to work and it turned out Ed, a guy I didn't know too well but had been at the hostel for 6 months, was leaving! A couple of the girls decided to make a little bit of a party with balloons and... well, the rest wasn't really concrete, but hey, balloons!

I brought 11 skewers, I had one and shared the rest with Ed and anybody else that wanted one and they were amazing. Probably because I barbequed them, but maybe because they were really nice skewers.

Joel has a thing for skewers.

A good laugh, a few beers and some goon. All the ingredients one needs for a good hostel party.

Red hats help too.

But it's not all fun and games, especially when you get your 'balance' email from Barclaycard, indicating that things are far from 'balanced' and my Aussie money is on critical, which means I'm going to have to hold out until Sunday with a mere $10 for food. Luckily, there is a place called Lentil as Anything that serves some really nice vegetarian food for a donation of your choosing. The food is so good that I haven't had the heart to pay anything less than $3 for it and their chai teas are really good too.

So if you don't hear from me soon it's because I have died from an overdose of pasta and tinned tomatoes.

Promoting My Meat

Never forget that, when traveling, it doesn’t pay to be too sentimental. I have already made some good friends here in St.Kilda, but like all hostels friendships shift and change at a moment’s notice

Now, I’m fortunate enough to be blessed with rugged good looks and a sense of humour so wicked that I can make a German fall for me... Everyone knows that isn’t a metaphor. To be fair, ‘falling’ is the wrong word, ‘flirting’ would be more accurate. Either way, I and a certain young lady had a great couple of days/nights in which I went to my second day of work after 4 hours sleep because this particular leibling wanted to see the little penguins at four in the bloody morning after a night at The Barkley.

Needless to say we put on quite a show for those penguins as things got a bit steamy on the rocks. We both knew we wouldn’t be together long as she was going to Cairns on Sunday night. I would feel like fate has deemed it necessary to push apart the chances of finding a special someone, but I’m not the kind of guy to care about ‘fate’. That in mind, there was an ‘uh-oh’ moment in the form of the line ‘you’re a lot older than me’. Having heard that, it soon dawned on me that this may be a mistake. But, and it is an important but, I didn’t even know she was nineteen until that night. I knew she must be younger than me, but not ‘that’ much’ younger. Geez. T’is an odd feeling indeed when you become ‘too old’ for somebody when you’re 26. I never thought I’d be so unprepared to hear it, but one cannot let such things deter oneself. True to form I stayed the course and at 5 am I finally returned to the hostel with a new ‘close’ friend. So, work was tough the next day.

On the subject of ‘work’, I am now a meat promoter, standing outside a butcher’s in a shopping centre letting people sample some of my special meat products. It’s not a bad job, it’s like the charity fundraising thing I did last year in Sydney except people are much happier when they get to try some free food. Maybe ‘Save the Children’ should cook parts of starving African kids to encourage people to subscribe?

Although there's more meat on these ones...

The job is going so well that I have been offered more hours, sadly it still only adds up to 30 hours a week, which is ok but I really want to save some money so I’m going to have to think of something that doesn’t involve ‘full body massage’ as one text message I received in response to my current Gumtree ad suggested.

So money is still an issue, but I’m hoping for something else to come up. Meanwhile I’ve been hanging out with my fellow 'hostellers', drinking, laughing and having a generally good time with some good folks, like last night when we sat on the beach at 11pm.

Saturday, I and a few others went down to the Espy to take in some live music and have a few quiet ones as I was still living on 4 hours sleep from the penguin/hot loving session the night before (reading this blog post back I now realise it’s maybe a bit all over the place, but whatever). Luckily the music was pretty chilled out, like a slow Mumford and Sons, but shit got closer to real when I noticed my 'close' friend getting a little teary eyed. Did I mention she would be leaving for Cairns with her travel partner the next day? Oh, maybe I should have. Well, she wouldn’t be in St. Kilda much longer and clearly the mellow tones and harmonies of Mitch Davis and the Dawn Chorus were highlighting that. So our relationship was on a tight schedule and it ended up taking a long time to walk back to the hostel as we kept stopping for little make out sessions in dark alley ways. And that was my weekend, or what I can remember of it. I have a day off today before I start giving passers by a portion in the shopping centre at Carnegie for 3 hours tomorrow.

So, to play us off, here's Mitch Davis and the Dawn Chorus.

Stuck in the Melbourne

Back in a hostel environment and money is becoming an issue. Fortunately I have a part time job (18 hours a week) convincing people to buy from a butcher's shop in a shopping centre. I'm still looking for another job to make up the hours but at least I'm not going to starve.

It's a good hostel here, very social, plus there are quite a lot of long termers here which is a good sign. I've already had some good nights out the past week (hence the lack of funds) so it looks like I'll be here for a while.

I'll probably write something more detailed soon, but I'm going to be offline for a few days as my internet will be expiring tomorrow and I won't be topping it up too soon.

Right, back to job searching. Until next time, adieu!

Anzac Day

Yesterday was Anzac day. I got the tram up to the shrine to have a look at the parade for a bit, because parades tend to get boring after a while.

 And it was raining.

Then I walked into Melbourne, but a lot of places were shut because of the public holiday so I couldn't ask many shops if they have any jobs going. Yes, that's right, I'm looking for a job again. I walked back to the shrine after a while in the city, just in time to hear the last post.

Then it was time for me to get the tram back to St.Kilda where I would meet a few of my fellow hostelers. A pretty good night, with a lot of beer, a free meal at a place called Base and more beer. There are quite a few long termers here which is good as I'm probably going to be here for a few months as soon as I get as job, which will hopefully be soon as today I handed out a load of CVs to some shops and found out about a website for labourers.

Now, I'm going to try and shake this hangover.

Leaving Tas Vegas

I'm sitting in the Aztec now, waiting the last couple of hours before I can check in and board the Spirit of Tasmania II : Electric Boogaloo.

Earlier I spent an hour walking around Beaconsfield's Mining Museum before hitting the road to Devonport.

The museum is good, there are working scale replicas of the machinery once used as well as some full size working replicas. There is a whole room dedicated to the Anzac Day thing, where two guys were trapped for two weeks in the mine as well as other historical events.

I'm Johnny Knoxville and this is 'Steam Boiler'

This is the still working bit of the mine

Yesterday I tried to suggest that 'Flowery Gully' and 'Grubb Shaft' were somehow innuendos. I failed. However, inside the museum was a whole corridor dedicated to innuendos! So, without further ado, cue knob jokes!

Yes, a whole corridor of knob jokes thanks to a collection amassed from 1985 by a guy who clearly had wood. Each knob is from a different Australian
tree and they have all been carved into phallic symbols.

There is nothing funny about this.

Outside I was treated to the sight of around ten Alvises. The Alvis drivers' club were obviously about and they are exceptional looking cars.

The Alvis is on the left of this photo

And here's an MG

Then I was off for a 90 minute drive to Devonport, after looking at Batman Bridge!

Oh, it doesn't look very 'Batman'.

It also rained, for a bit.

I grabbed some food and wrote a blog post. And now you're up to date. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a boat to wait for.