Despite its reputation as a pricy place to live, Australia’s cities do ‘free’ pretty well; the only place I’ve found so far that beats them is Kuala Lumpur. There’s no way around the hefty price tag that comes with city centre accommodation (Discovery Melbourne boasts […]
Australia is the great British backpacker’s dream; falling into jobs wherever you land, earning at least double your UK wage and all in a sun filled country. That has not quite been my experience not least because my travelling wardrobe was not put together with […]
I fled half way around the world to escape being an adult, yet here I am with a full time job and a house in rainy Melbourne. Not quite what I had expected from Australia. Despite a severe hang over, I had somehow made it […]
Discovery Melbourne hasn’t been the most sociable hostel I’ve ever stayed in so I’d been fairly mopey since Mike left for a trip with his parents, thinking I’d spend the three weeks of his absence friendless and lonely. It turns out though that was just […]
I left Perth at 7pm after an all day movie marathon and landed in Melbourne 9 hours later, at 7am (Melbourne is 3 hours ahead) having had no sleep on the cramped Jet Star plane. With the addition of a skateboard strapped to the front, […]
The mad town of Manjimup is now well and truly in my past. And let’s hope it stays there. No more mental bosses screaming at me for getting sinks wet, no more cleaning of dog placenta from dogs tails and no more cleaning poo from […]
We had our first day off in three weeks and it called for a celebration: a mini road-trip to Margaret River, one last jaunt in our Holden Commodore, which is currently more dust than car, before it moves on to owners new. Sheer blue skies […]
Picking fruit, packing vegetables, slaving away on a farm in extreme heat losing my body weight in sweat each day; what I had expected to be doing to earn my second year visa, the type of work you’d only do if you’re a backpacker and […]
The diamond tree has a lookout straddled atop its bough, 52m vertically up in the air. Stakes have been forced into its trunk to form a ladder that winds steeply around the trees trunk, a flimsy chicken wire mesh vaguely protects you from falling outwards, […]
On a good day, Manjimup is a 3.5 hour drive south of Perth, down two long highways. The first is lined with fields that stretch dusty and scrubby with stumpy trees east and west. Approaching Manjimup you become hemmed in by towering Karri trees which […]