Merry Christmas

 

We would love to wish you all a very Merry Christmas 

And we hope you have a wonderful

New Year!
x

Sammy The Seal

We woke up early Monday morning ready to hit the road again and start to make our way east again. We left Cape Le Grand around 8.30 am, so we could spend a few hours walking around the town before heading out to Fitzgerald National Park.

When we stayed in the hostel, two guys told us that there was a seal that lived under the big jetty. The told us that he will swim along side you when you walk down he jetty. So Aimee and I walked the all way to the end of jetty and we had not seen him. We thought that they'd had us over, we was about to leave and Aimee spotted him under the walk way on the sand, so we walked out there for nothing. It was so windy out there and by the time we started to walk back it had started to rain.

He looked more like a sealion not a seal..

We managed to get a shot of him whilst he was on the sand when it got brighter a few hours later. But do you think we can find it?

From beaches to Summits to drinking goon

Over the five days we was in Cape Le Grand, we sun bathed, paddle and climbed. 
The beaches were hidden away and secluded, they are the most beautiful beaches we have ever been on.

The Beaches
Hell  fire bay:
Hellfire bay had loads of rocks to climb on the west side of the beach. We only had our flip flops on so we decided to walk down the beach and have a paddle before going to grab some lunch, and for Aimee to put some trainers on to climb the rocks to see the better view's of the beach.


Lucky bay.
This is the beach that Craig had fallen in love with from one of the books we brought. The sand didn't feel like sand it felt more like wet caster sugar, it was very fine and pure white. The water was fabulous different shades of blue and some nice sized waves.

The Summit
Frenchmans Peak
On our last morning we decided to go and take a walk up the highest peak in the national park, it wasn't the tallest rock we climbed up but it was well worth it. It was only 214m above sea level and it only takes 40 minutes to get to the sumit. We was at the top of the hill for about an hour just chilling out and enjoying the views.

 

The Goon.
Meeting new chums.
As all the campers share the campers kitchen we all managed to get in the kitchen at the same time at the same people. On our last night we had dinner with the family we shared the kitchen with. Ben Tanja and their two children Asta and Gustav. After dinner and a bit of play time Ben and Tanja put the children to bed, and came and joined us at the table. We chatted and finished the box of goon..
They invited us back to their van (Black Betty) to open a bottle of their favourite wine! We all finished the wine as you do, it was getting pretty late by this time so Aimee and I decided to hit the sack.

In the morning it was time for us to leave Cape Le Grand, we exchanged numbers with Ben and Tanja and arranged to meet up again.

And and the flip of the coin we're off.

The morning after we attempted fishing after dark, we decided to move on again. This time we could not make up our mind on where to go. We have two books that we are using to find our way around. The first book tells us about the

The Beach Craig fell in love with

national parks in Western Australia and the second book we brought is Roads and Track which is actually very useful as it tell you about the camp site in the local area you are in.

 

Craig had fallen in love with a picture he's seen in the first book, the picture shows a beach with white sands, clear sky and three different shades of blue in the ocean. Sounds perfect hey. The drive over there however was going to take us a whole day to get there. Aimee actually didn't fancy driving all that way.

The flipped coin

So we flipped a coin to help us decided on where to go. Heads we got left at the main road and tails we got right.
Craig flipped the coin and our decision was made. At the main road we was to turn left and keep driving until we hit the town of Esperance.

5 Hours later..

We hit Esperance, Our first beach we seen had a jetty with kids jumping off the end of it and to the right of them in the ocean was a float with a slide. The weather was sunny but overcast, with a bit of wind.  We had no idea where we was going to stay that evening. So we got our books out and started to look for places to stay. 

We decided on driving another 40 minutes to the Cape Le Grand national park. Where there was a choice of two camp sites. We decided to take the quickest route. As the sun was descending pretty quickly. Once we was in the area of the national park we had take an unsealed road, which was accessible to 2WDs. However when we drove down there for a few km's we found that the unsealed road turns into a sand track for 4WD's. Time to turn back..

We drove back into Esperance to find a youth hostel. We came across the YHA, $65's a night to stay in a small room with cardboard walls. Our room was in the corridor to the toilets, you can imagine the noise!

After a drunken night sleep we was up again and ready to find the road that takes us into the national park. After a McDonalds breakfast a cup of coffee and abusing the free internet, we started the 40minute journey again. This time taking the right road for us.

Lucky we did take the wrong road the day before because the camp site was closed that evening for maintenance. So we would of had to of drove back to the town. The maintenance guys finished the job at 3pm so we could move in and set up camp for the next 5 days. 

Again No Tea.. Failed at night fishing

You may of noticed we haven't published many post in the last few weeks, the reason why we haven't posted is because we have very little Internet connection in the outback so we have been writing our post's in word. Well when we got to a camp site where we had great connection we opened our document and BAM it was gone. Gutted.
We did managed to save this little post which I don't actually think we was going to post anyway.. 

So now we have to start again from scratch. We will work as hard as we can to get back up to date.

Well let's get on with it.

Last night (24-11-10) we decided to give night fishing ago. BIG FAT FAIL. If you don't have patients don't take up fishing, especially night fishing. We have only been fishing once and that was the day before and, all that caught us was a crab!
After a few times of trying to catch a fish last night we decided to retire back to the camp site and have a few glasses of goon and then hit the sack.

Failing at Fishing.. No Tea for Us

We was woken up early the next morning not by fellow campers but by the oceans roar, we found out that we was 15ft away from the ocean. Sounds great hey?

The Beach and the rock's we fished from

Anyway we got up out the tent, and was greeted by these two fella's who had just finished the bibblium track. They both had fishing rods and offered to set our rods up, they showed us how to do it and we was ready to go fishing.

Having never done fishing before, this was a big challenge for us both. All we hoped for was to catch a fish, we wasn't hoping to catch a big one we just wanted to catch a fish. So with our fingers crossed we went to the beach and found some great rocks to fish off.

We climbed up the rock's, got settled then started the fishing business, back in England Craig had been watching some fishing programmes and had remembered a few things from them, so he casted out first showing me how to do it.

Craig

In no time at all we was casting out and playing the waiting game. Well we played the waiting game for a few hours and still we had caught noting. We decided to cast out one more time then we would call it a day.

Well Aimee through the line out, it got caught by the wind, a march fly bit the back of her ankle making her jump the bait had been caught by a crab, whilst fannying about with her ankle and trying to wind the reel back in, the crab pulled Aimee slipped the march fly died and the crab got away.

Aimee

So all we caught or shell we re-phrase that all that caught us was a crab.

And that was the story of our first day on our adventure and our first day fishing.

And so the road trip begin's

We left Perth at around 11 o'clock in the morning after running a few errands and saying our last good byes the car was packed and off we went.
We headed towards the tolken highway to join the Albany highway south.
Fingers crossed and smiles on our faces the 4 and a half journey had started. We were a bit anxious as it was the first time the pom bomb (the car) and us had driven for more than an hour at a time was the car up for the trip of 467kms?

We had no other plans other than that we were going to Albany we were officially jobless and after handing our door keys over homeless as well but with out a care only whether the car would make it we were off.
On our way down the Albany highway we seen some big bad road trains and some big ass machinery.

four and a half hours 1 camel, 2 donkeys, and a thousands of sheep later the pom bomb had made it. Our only drama was now finding a camp spot in the rain.

Earlier in Perth we had bought some maps and books of campsites and routes around western Australia and we knew that in Albany there were some Free campsites yep you heard me right 'FREE CAMPSITES' so we headed for a place called cosy corner.
We travelled from Albany town centre along the highway a little out of town and stumbled across a sign for the campsite down a dirt track off road we had finally landed home for the night.

In the book it read that there was only 5 camping plots, but there was a whole lot more than 5 may 35..?
It was getting dark, and it started to rain but we still needed to stop and set up camp this was it we rolled up to see all the plots were full with caravans fancy wagons.
We snuk in to a plot next to a fancy wagon this was our spot. Before we knew it the tent was up and this was home for now. The couple in the fancy wagon next to us were so nice, they made us tea whilst we was putting our tent up.

We made dinner, made our beds and jumped into them as today was a very long day..

The Money Source Part 2

After we left the potato farm, we needed to find a job pretty quick as the little savings we had was running out quickly and the cash we earned from the harvest and pruning was just enough to help us through the next 2 or 3 weeks.

We joined a free agency that had loads of jobs for backpacker's. The Job Shop has won loads of awards for getting backpackers work more than any other agency. They managed to get us a job working on plant nursery called 'Landsdale Plants' In Landsdale North Perth.

We worked at the farm for 3 months doing all sorts of different jobs.

• Weeding
• Planting
  
• Catching
  
• Laying Out
  

 In the begging of summer Perth had a water band so many people stopped buying plants, so the work for us dried up, so all we was doing was weeding. Then work started to pick back up again and we was back to our normal duties,

Once their was no stock left we had to go back to the weeding, and this was such a pain in the backside. After a few weeks of doing the same crap we decided enough was enough and it was time to leave. We did Leave for a good reason tho, to start our road trip to Sydney.

Whale Watching

A few Saturdays ago we got invited to do some whale watching with our friend Lisa we met going through Thailand. The Indian Ocean was calm as but Aimee still managed to get sea sick...

Aimee > Craig > Lisa

We caught the boat from Freemantle and headed out into the Indian Ocean just a few miles north of Rottnest Island. It took us about 30 minutes to get there, and once we found the pod of whales we seen them in all their glory.
Our first encounter with the whales was a female teaching her baby how to breech, this was amazing. The mother would jump out of the water then a few moments later the little whale would copy exactly what she done. It was breath taking. Although these whale were a good distance away you could see everything.

The captain drove the boat up as close as we are allowed to go, and then we seen around 12 whales all at different times doing doing different whaley things. The boat was turned off and the under water microphone was turned on. Well this made Aimee fill up, the sound of the male whales singing to attract the attention of a female sounded so beautiful.

A few moments later some of the whales decided to investigate our boat, they came up so close, humpback whales are enormous! They then decided to show off, showing us some of the things they could do.

We had 2 tour guide, one was commentating and the other was taking photo's of the whales so they can gather as much information of them as they can. Apparently one of the whales has never been seen before so they had to take as many photo's as possible.

The way they tell whales apart from each other is the pattern on their tail, each whale has a different one just like our human fingerprint.

The money source

We have had 2 jobs since we started working in Australia, it tooks a while to find a job but we got there in the end.
We started off with a contractor called Drummond, he got us jobs working on the grape vine in the Swan Valley for a few days. Which was actually quite good.
The best thing about it was that it wasn't peace work, we got paid an hourly rate of about $18 an hour for pruning a few grape vines.

Craig, Starting to prune the grape vine.

Row's of Grape Vines

After a few days he offered us a job working in GinGin on the potato harvest. This was the worst job ever in the world. We was put on to the back of a harvester sifting through potatoes chucking out the rotten and miss-shaped ones. The harvest machine we was on the back of was probably about 30 or 40 years old.

Aimee, On the harvest machine stuck in the mud.

 Every now and again the thing got stuck in the mud so we had to sit around until we got pulled out. This machine wasn't the most comfortable thing to sit on. Every night we would come home with new bruises all over our body. The hours was so long, we'd leave the house in the dark and come home in the dark.
4 days of torture and this was enough! We decided to start the job hunt again!

Aimee, With 1 ton's worth of potato's

Craig, Showing us the produce

The Pom Bomb

We'd like you to meet Pom Bomb our baby..

It cost us $2k we have had to have a few bits and bob done to it. She's a good runner even tho she's a ford! (As the Aussie keep telling us)

it's been a while

G'day!

Thought we'd write an entry as we haven't wrote for a while.

We broke our camera, and the pictures we do have are still on our mobile as we lost the cable to upload them.. How great are we!! This weekend we did however buy a new camera, so we will be flooding you with photo's as soon as we start doing the touristy bit again.


We have been working so hard the past few months, trying to build our funds back up so we can start our road trip over to the east coast. Fingers crossed we can start in the new year!

Sun Set

It took us a few days to catch the sun set. It was well worth the wait. Although the picture's don't really look it due to being took on the mobile phone.

We will be going again with the camera.  

 

Kings Park

The day after we sorted all the boring stuff done, it was time to go see what Kings Park had to offer. We had both heard about the park and it would be a great start to seeing Perth.
We spent the afternoon walking around looking at all the sights. In Kings Park they have many war memorials. It also has the best views of the city and great views over the Swan River. Kings Park one of the largest inner city parks in the world.

Craig is standing in a memorial for the people killed in the Bali bombings.

Kings Park War Memorial
One of the most beautiful memorials I have ever seen.

After looking around the memorial reading the 1000s of names we decided to have a walk around the park. We found an information centre and asked them is they could direct us to the glass bridge. They pointed the way and off we went.

Aimee on the Glass Bridge

The walk up towards the Glass Bridge through the tree's

This little fella greeted us with a nice little chirp

Kings park also has a botanical garden, which is free and plenty of fountains and chill out spots.
Great place for a picnic!

Perth...Day 1

Our first day in Australia and we had to start the fun and games by opening up a bank account with a superannuation fund and start to apply for a Tax File Number (TFN).

Opening a Bank Account
Opening a bank account couldn't be easier. We walked into the bank (we chose Westpac) we told the cashier or the "teller" as they call them here, and told them we was backpackers on a working holiday visa and that we needed a bank. The only information she asked for was an address we was staying at, our date of birth, a photocopy of our passport and if we had a tax file number.

Our teller was a girl called Jasmin, she talked more to us about her trip to Bali than our bank account itself. We had to put a deposit in there as soon as possible.


Superannuation
This is like the UK pension scheme. People with working holiday visa's can have a rebate when they leave the country. So for us it's more like a savings account but we only get a percentage back.

Tax File Number
Before we can start work we needed to apply for a tax file number. To apply for a TFN you can apply online like we did via this link "Apply for TFN" or you can call "13 2861" or you can apply in person by going to one of the office's.

You give you TFN to your bank so they can control your "superannuation"  and how much tax you pay. This number is usually 8 figures or 9 figures.

August 2nd 2010 - Hello Perth

We finally arrived in Perth, Western Australia on the 2nd August at 00.45am. Luckily for us, we did not have jet lag (as people kept asking us) as we was in Singapore and they are in the same time-zone.

After a brisk walk through the airport to pick up our bag's and getting another stamp in our passport we was free to leave the airport. We walked into the arrivals lounge to be greeted by Aimee's aunt and uncle Rachel and David.

We are going to stay with David's sister Annie and her family until we can find work, and a house to share or a small flat of our own.

We would love to do a bit more traveling but due to spending so much money on stupid things in South East Asia we have decided to stay put in Perth for a few months to build the funds back up.

The Hype About Singapore Was A Very Big Let Down

When we told people was going to Singapore, everyone seemed to give the place loads of hype. And how it was clean and all that shit.

Yes it was clean well, there was no chewing gum (as this has been banned) but the place wasn't as good as people told us it would be.

Anyway as we had little money, we decided to go to a cheap hotel. We was told to go to Hotel 81 and they would look after us. So off we went in search of one of one the hotels. We found one i forget what the name of it was called. And they quoted us for 5days £375. Yes thats right £375. That would of been a big blow budget for Singapore.

The fella behind the desk asked us if this price was ok, we looked at each other and said we couldn't afford this not even one night. He told us not to worry and picked up the telephone. Thinking he was calling a customer we pick up our bags and began to walk out. The man was shouting for us to stop as he was actually on the phone to another Hotel 81. He said that there is room in their hollywood hotel.

Me being me thought there was a place called Hollywood, but I thought wrong. It was the name of the hotel and the rooms had themes to them like you could have a cave room or a space room ect. We had the basic room, which was right at the top of the hotel. This came to £130 for 5days. I guess we could of got it cheaper but we didn't book in advance as we kept changing the dates of when we was meant to get here.

We went out to search for something good. We found out that Tourist could get a cheaper rated transport card. This made travel a whole lot cheaper. (If you ever go to Singapore ask for a tourist card at city hall or the airport).

If Singapore wasn't expensive then I guess I would of enjoyed it a bit more, but the fact you had to pay for everything was a bit OTT. Here's a few photo's we took.

A War Memorial

Hey Conrad We seen this and thought of you!
Think you may need to click on the photo to see it Dan!

The amazing subways.
I did have a photo of some of the break dancers in here
but gosh knows where its gone?

One of the things we wanted to do whilst we was here was to go on the night safari. Shame I didn't take my better camera with us on this round the planet trip as i would of come in handy on this safari.
We wasn't allowed to take photo's with the flashes on. We did try our best mind.

One of Aimee's fav kodak moments.

Yet again Aimee pushed the kids off so she could have a go at mouting the Zebra.
Zebra or Zeebra?
How do you say it?

10 second timer

You might of noticed some photo's was in the day light and some was in the night time. We got on the tram just before dusk.