I am not an art person but I like Melbourne anyway, this city has galleries on every corner and street art in every dirty little alley. Its pretty cool, in any other city the back alleys are places you go to get stabbed or mugged, here its a major tourist attraction! For coffee lovers, this is a must visit city as well, little cafes and coffee shops hidden in a maze of alleys and random little doors that look like they go nowhere but at the end of it, there is a quirky little coffee shop or pub. It really is a nice city though and it doesn't surprise me that it has been voted the most livable city a few times.
I am staying at the Hotel Discovery and despite the name, it is a hostel. I have met some great people here and have a small group that does a lot of things together. Like for dinner we often get together and cook a "family" dinner. It really is an international group with a frenchman, two germans, two Canadians, two Australians and a girl from Taiwan. But we have had a blast getting to know each other. Last saturday we went to see an Aussie Rules Football game at the MCG, it was great fun even though I still don't understand the game. Then we had a few days of just exploring the city and then Tuesday night we went to the karaoke bar, that was interesting lol. I hope none of those videos ever surface! But we had a really good time and might go back next week.
Thursday night Heather flew in to visit for a day so that was exciting, she got in at ten pm or so and then the two of us went to go find this one pub that is at the end of a creepy lane way. But it was worth it, this bar is called the Croft Institution and serves their drinks in scientific beakers or you get a syringe to help you drink your drinks. It really is a pretty cool little place.
We are planning to go to Phillip Island on Sunday to see the little penguin parade. I am pretty excited about that, I like penguins! I have to quickly do a few things over here since I am busing out on Wednesday heading back to the countryside to do some more work. I got a job near where I was before so thats nice, Ill get to see all the friends I made over there again and it doesn't hurt that Heather lives there to!
Thats me right now and I hope to hear from ya'll soon!

Its party time in the land of Oz! Got into Brisbane on saturday night after nine hours on the Greyhound. Believe me when I say that the buses are not designed for a guy my size, at every stop where we had even five minutes, I got out to try and get feeling back into my legs. Once in Brissy I wandered up the street from the transit center to my hostel, I think I need to dump some of my belongings, my backpack weighs a lot! If I want to do any kind of an extended hiking trip there will be some major modifications to what I have in my bag, essentials only!

But anyway, go to hostel and settled in, went up to the roof where the bar and the kitchen are and had the best burger since Canada. Met a few people and just spent the nights talking over a few drinks. Its one of the most interesting things about backpacking, you get to meet so many people from all over the world. Although to be honest, 95% of backpackers are either English or Irish, I have not met any other North Americans on my travels. I need to find me a Canadian and just talk for hours about the NHL or something, all this talk about rugby and AFL is getting old. 

Met up with my travel buddy Joe on Sunday afternoon, moved from the big party hostel to a small one in a residential area where there is a strict noise restriction. Its nice though, a change from the high energy vibe you get in the bigger hostels, here its all about relaxation. 

We didn’t really have a plan of what we were going to do when we got to Brisbane so we debated a few different things and decided on heading to Darwin. There is a chance that we will be working on a croc farm for a few days, that would be an experience! We are taking a rented campervan up there, we have 7 days to cover 3500 km. And a lot of that is just through remote barren desert/scrub bush so it could be pretty boring after we cross the great dividing range somewhere west of Rockhampton Queensland. I don’t really know what to expect or what I’ll need along the way but we’ll figure it out. Can’t wait to get to out of the city, I have spent so much money in three days its stupid! But I have the rest of the week paid for unless we do some touristy things, oh and I need to buy a sleeping bag for the trip. We were going to go to the Koala Sanctuary today but it started raining right when we were on our way to catch the bus so we decided we would wait until the end of the week when the forecast is more sunny. Since its raining we should have a lot of time to plan our road trip, good thing Joe is here, I would be quite lost without this guy. He has more contacts around the country than I do, which is what you need when you’re a backpacker on a limited budget. So thats me for now and we’ll see how this trip turns out!

Ahh, its my last week here in Walgett and I will miss this place! The people here are very friendly and I have made some great friends here. But, I will be back here in a few months for the harvest so that makes me pretty happy. 

I did something this weekend that I had never done before, and before your imagination goes wild, I went to the horse races. It was a good time, mostly its just an excuse for everyone to get dressed up and get together. Some of the women did the whole fancy racewear thing with the big hats and such, there were a few hats that made me do a double take and try not to laugh to loudly! But it was a good way to see everyone before I head off to Brissy.

We got another backpacker here yesterday, Mike from England. Haven’t chatted a lot but he seems like a nice guy. He did the same program I did but he came off a lot worse, fell off a horse four times and now has a bruise on his hip that looks a lot like mine did in February after my hockey injury. Good luck to him sitting in the tractor for twelve hours straight! We are going to have to go hard this week to finish the sowing, still have 700 plus hectares to go and its going pretty slowly right now. 

But regardless of how far we get, I have a bus to catch Saturday morning so if its not done, Oh well! 

I really don’t have a plan after going to Alice Springs, but im sure something will present itself. There are a lot of ways to amuse oneself in this country, its just hard to find out which ones you want to do. But anyway, take care everyone and Happy Fathers Day dad!

Hiya mates, its been a while since I’ve let you know whats happening down on the farm so here goes, June 10th update. We have come to a standstill in the sowing department, rained last weekend so its pretty wet right now. So this week we really didn’t do any work, just a little bit of puttering around on the yard cleaning stuff and really not doing much productive. But at least I got to watch playoff hockey so that was great. I went on skype on monday to wish my mum a happy 50th birthday, I would have liked to be there but it just wasn’t to be. I have spent a lot of time watching tv this week since we didn’t have much to do and went over our internet data limit for the month again and therefore had super slow connection. Pete left this week to go on his honeymoon, three months after his wedding, to Thailand. So while I’m about to get back on the tractor and go hard, he is kicked back on the beach with a beer. Oh well, im two weeks away from doing some traveling myself! And on friday it was my birthday which is not a big deal but I had a really nice time celebrating in town. On friday we went for a drive in the LandCruiser to see how the livestock was doing. That involved doing some bush driving and well, we got bogged trying to cross the worrumbool. So then John, Richard, Ella (Richards daughter) and I got to make the 5km walk back to the house. It was a nice walk lol. I got to do a little bit of pig shooting the other day, chased it down with a quad and shot this boar on the run, good times! Later that day some guys that hunt pigs professionally came down and in six hours had shot 22 wild pigs, but there are a lot more that need to be taken down. they are very destructive animals and can wipe out acres of crops in a very short time. 

So thats whats been going on here lately!

I love rain days. It means I get a day off to just sit around and watch North American sports like  the Stanley Cup Playoffs! This last week has been pretty busy for me, sowing chickpeas and wheat. I started on Thursday and spent four days straight planting a 900+ acre paddock of chickpeas. Then right after that we switched from the tine planter to the disc planter that has the sweet name of “The Bullet”. Its called that because you can sow at pretty high speeds. We were going 8.5 kph with the tine planter but with the Bullet we were going 17 kph. You definitely cover a lot of ground when you’re going that fast. 

Once the chickpeas were done we started planting wheat on the promise of rain. Put in just over 1500 acres of wheat in 27 hours, we went at it pretty hard! The rain came this morning so the boss man was happy about that, the forecast is for 2 to 4 inches of rain this weekend. Terry took off for town this morning so that she wouldn’t be stuck out here for a week or however long its going to be. So it looks like John and I will have to make our own meals for a few days, oh well I think we can manage that. 

I had been looking to get a nice backpack to replace the wheeled luggage I came over with and on monday I bought a trekking pack online, hopefully it gets here next week sometime. I think its a really nice one, the video advertising it was very convincing anyway! I will have to donate some of my clothes to Mission Australia because I won’t have space to pack everything I brought. Now I just have to decide which I really don’t need, but since I am planning a trip from tropical Darwin to snow and sleet Adelaide, I am going to need a range of different clothes. I made a bucket list the other day while I was on the tractor, I won’t say whats on it but it does involve me conquering some of my fears thats for sure! But thats what this year is all about isn’t? All I need is a enough money to do those things, which is easier said than done at times but I think I’ll get it done. I do wish that I didn’t have to make car payments but that is something I have to live with I guess. Unless someone wants to buy my car! I might buy a car with the guy Im traveling with, see what we can find.

But anyhow I am running out of things to say even though Im really bored with this baseball game Im watching until the hockey comes on a 10 am. 

Its a different world over here. I’m sure you all knew that but figured I could tell you again. We tried to sow chickpeas in a few different paddocks today but everywhere it was far to dry. The seed was about six inches down and still not in the moisture, very different from at home. We did finally find a paddock where it will work but we need to spray it first and then wait a few days before we can sow there. But the beans we planted a few weeks ago are up so thats good, just enough good news to keep my boss happy.

I have been learning a lot about Australia while I’ve been here, there are a lot of similarities to Canada. The government structure is the same and we both are commonwealth nations. But the Australians have kept the English traditions much more alive than the Canadians, still have tea instead of coffee breaks. The aboriginals here are often on welfare and have a lot of drug and alcohol problems. Its really sad actually how they just seem to have no ambition to better themselves, but why should they? the government buys them new cars!  That information was for the people who have been studying Australia lately, you’re welcome. 

I went to the Walgett show this last weekend and had a really good time! Its a small show but they get a lot of horses and other livestock out from all over the state. They also had a couple of rides for the kiddies and such. One of the vendors made wood fired pizzas, they were amazing! I hadn’t had pizza in a few months so that could have had something to do with my amazement haha. I met a whole bunch of nannies this weekend, so many of the farmers have nannies for their kids! That was something that I did not know about these Aussies. I haven’t heard from Englishman Joe in a while, he has very limited service where he is so its kinda difficult to plan our trip. I also have a real beef with MasterCard, I can’t do any online purchases! I called them and was told that there is no problem with the card and I should just buy from different sites. But the real problem is that I am trying to put more minutes on my phone cause I ran out a week ago, and the Telstra site doesn’t take my card! Of course I could just go to the nearest Telstra shop and do it in person but, its over 200 km away! So that is my big issue this week. 

Smells like dinner is almost ready to go, lamb chops, potato, pumpkin and some other vegetable. Apparently Australians like to have three veggies and one meat for dinner every night. I could use a Flamethrower burger from DQ by now, haven’t had fast food since I was in Dubbo two months ago, I miss it! Although I’m sure its good for my health to not have any fast food. But, looks like its time to eat so I gotta run. Later everyone!

Ahh rural Australian life, four hour blackouts because a tractor ran over a power pole in the  middle of a paddock somewhere. How is everyone? I am fantastic now, was a little down for a bit but I’m good now and ready to continue this adventure I am on. The last little while has been pretty busy but busy is good. The shearers finished on monday afternoon so thats one big thing off the to do list. It took them only three days to shear just over 1600 sheep, that is a lot of work for four guys! The money is good doing that but its backbreaking work in the dust and sheep poop, not my idea of fun. On monday Richard and I brought the cattle down into the yards to wean last years calves. There has been an awful lot of mooing around here but its getting less and less everyday. There were eight calves from this year in the mob as well so they needed ear tags and castration for the little boys. We tried to put them in the cradle to work on them but some of them refused so I got to play cowboy for a bit and throw em to the ground the old fashioned way! Those little guys never stood a chance when I got hold of them!

We are going to finish harvest tomorrow, still have a few hundred acres of sorghum that needs to come off. But that will be a days work tops so then we have to find something else to do. Hopefully we get some rain here shortly so that we can start sowing some more crops, its to dry for sowing as it is. 

Went on a bus trip with the rugby team last weekend, went over to Bourke to take on the Rams over there. Which is kind of funny since the Walgett team is also called the Rams, I guess that tells you how big sheep farming is out here. The Walgett town show is this weekend so that could be interesting, everything is agriculturally oriented. There are fast shearing competitions and things like that, snake man is coming to show us all about the creepy devils that live in the grass around here. Richard killed a huge red-bellied black snake yesterday and narrowly missed killing an even bigger one, at least six foot something. 

Now that we have internet again I can update my blog! Last month we went over the limit so they cut us off for almost a week. When you’re this far from everywhere it seems pretty isolated even though I’m not that far from town. 

Anyway, thats me right now, hope to hear from you all real soon! 

Well its been nearly two months since I left home to have an adventure in the land down under. And so far it has been an adventure but right at this time it is getting a little boring since I am doing the same job here that I was doing at home only with lower quality equipment. John Deere really is the best, sorry to all you misinformed other farmers! Haha Lately has been a little busier around here and this week looks like it will turn out to be quite busy. The sheep shearers start tomorrow and there is a lot of spraying to be done and the remainder of the sorghum is being harvested at the end of the week. I don’t know how much I will be doing with the sheep but I actually hope not that much. I don’t really like sheep a whole lot. I would prefer to spend a day on the tractor if it was my choice but I only do what the boss tells me. I have not played any rugby lately because my knee is still wonky. I got to say I have kind of lost my interest in rugby, just don’t have the motivation to play and after this weekend for sure not. Walgett played their first season game and had one guy break his arm in two places, one dislocated finger, a neck injury and one guy with broken ribs. While I am on this trip I would rather not be laid up for a few weeks. I would get destroyed if I played league games because I don’t understand the rules properly. 

I have to admit that I have been missing family and friends a lot lately, a real case of backpacker blues. Apparently a lot of first time backpackers get a little homesick at the two month mark and then get over it by the three month mark. Which I think is definitely the case since after this job is done in mid june I plan to do some adventure stuff. I plan to travel with an English bloke that I met in Coonabarabran. We want to travel from Darwin down through the Red Center to see Ayers Rock and then on down to Adelaide. It is a two week journey with a few nights under the stars in the middle of the desert. It sounds like a lot of fun, riding camels, swimming under waterfalls, spotting crocs and rock climbing mixed with doing some opal mining and spending a night in Coober Peddy. Its a town where almost everything is underground, shopping and churches included. Its kind of pricey so I will have to find a job once that trip is over. I think I will try to find a job in Melbourne, it sounds like a really interesting city and everyone from there thinks its the best city in Australia. But we will see how things pan out over the next month or so. And that concludes April 2012. 

Well its been a while since I updated ya'll on what is happening down under and my mum is on my case about that so here goes. The last few weeks have been spent waiting for rain and then waiting for it to dry.  We were going to start sowing the beans last week but then it rained which was good, but then it rained to  hard and we had to put it off until this monday. But then it rained so we had to put it off again! It is not a lot of fun when it goes like this. But unless there is more rain we are starting first thing tomorrow morning and then going 24 hrs a day with two operators taking 12 hour shifts. And speaking of things being delayed, the sheep shearing crew was scheduled to arrive on Thursday but the wool press is broken and now have to wait for another one to arrive from Dubbo. So that is delayed until next week monday. My boss is going a little nuts with all this delay and I don't blame him!
So while we are waiting for weather to be right we were cleaning up silo bags from years past. When the roads are to soft for transport during harvest the grain gets put in big bags 75 meters long. These bags had gotten wet during the floods so the bottom foot or so of grain was unsellable (is that a word?). So now we had to shovel a path across and cut them into sections we could handle and pull them out from under the grain. Its super heavy and wet and smells worse than pig doodoo! Oh and did I mention that there are usually a few snakes underneath. I got to shoot a few big Brown snakes with a twelve gauge shotgun, good times! But we are mostly caught up with that job thank goodness, only four or five more bags to go.
    I usually go into town on the weekends for a night or two. Go to the local sporting club and have a few beers with the locals and listen to people try and sing. It is quite humorous sometimes! Pete keeps bugging me to go up and sing some Bryan Adams cause I am Canadian. That has not happened yet, I told him on my last weekend in Walgett I might try it. I should really sing every time because the first twenty get a twenty dollar voucher for the bar and restaurant. And if you win the night its another 100 dollars! But I have a job where public humiliation is not required so I'm happy with that!
    Rugby season starts on Saturday and if I want to I can play. Im not sure if I want to play my first game of rugby in front of a crowd of thousand plus people that all know the game. I have not been to training for the last few weeks because my knee is acting up again from spraining it playing bush league hockey in February. I have been trying to strengthen it by doing some light workouts and stretching but so far not much improvement.
    I am figuring out that I did not have a clue what I needed to pack when I came over here. I have way more clothes and stuff than I need! I have a wheeled luggage bag but think I might change that to one of these huge trekking backpacks. It would be so much easier for traveling around. I had planned to head to the coast after walgett but it sounds like I will be meeting up with an english bloke and head up to Darwin and then travel through the center of Australia to Ayers Rock and then on to Adelaide.
    Tomorrow is ANZAC Day here, its a day to celebrate the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp. It is a pretty big deal but I will miss the festivities in town because of sowing. I am attending a ball on Saturday to raise money for the Walgett show that goes on in May. So I gotta get spiffy and stuff, it will be a good place to meet some more of the local people which is always good. But this is gettin pretty long and I can always post another. Miss you Canadians!

P.S. If anyone wants to skype with me just send me a message on Facebook or something and we will try to set something up.

Two weeks here in Walgett and still liking it a lot. The people i am staying with are awesome and feeding me very well. The boss, John Holcombe and his wife Terry are a mid fifties couple with two married sons, Richard and Pete. 

I got lucky with my work placement, Pete is the president of the Walgett rugby team. I have been going to practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I follow the others around with what im sure is a confused look on my face. I am learning a little but still don’t have any idea why they do what they do when they do it. But tackling the big bags is a lot of fun, run at top speed, lower the shoulder and slam the bag down as hard as you can. But its not all smooth sailing for me, I sprained my knee playing hockey in february and now with rugby its acting up again. I keep meaning to rehab the knee every evening but that doesn’t seem to happen regularly.

The job here is pretty similar to what I did at home, spraying, seeding and stuff like that. I still can’t quite comprehend that there are winter and summer crops here. We are going to start planting the winter crops shortly, probably mid april. All the crops are zero till and there are permanent tracks on the fields where the seeder, sprayer and when possible the harvester travel along. They don’t even plant in these tracks so there is no seed wasted which I think is a great idea. The fields or “paddocks” are huge! Most of them are around 1500 acres or more. The longest field is 3 km from one end to the other, a really long time to sit and do nothing when you have auto steer in the tractor, which we have here thankfully! The other day when we were cleaning up some old silo bags we had a little excitement, five Australian Brown snakes were living under there. These snakes are about five or six feet long and one of the more venomous snakes in Australia. We killed them all with shovels but the next time we clean up more bags we’ll bring the shotgun to take care of the buggers.

I imagine i’ll be here until mid june or so and then im not sure where I want to go. Im thinking maybe the Queensland coast. Travel from Brisbane to Cairns along the coast, sun sand and surf sound great. I need to find a travel buddy, it would make the whole experience even more fun. I have met some people that I may meet up with at a later date so hopefully that works out. Johns cousin was here for a few days and said that if I wanted to stay at their place on the Gold coast I was welcome to do that. So I think that if I go up to Cairns I’ll definitely do that.

I am starting to understand the accent around here for the most part but still have to ask people to repeat themselves sometimes. I am getting used to having geckos in the bathroom and frogs everywhere but they still scare me sometimes. 

Last week I went into the bathroom and just about peed meself, a gecko ran across the wall right in front of my face. Now I am always prepared when I go in there!

If this sounds like i am distracted its because I am, trying to type this, watch tv and listen to the conversation going on around me. Not really working. I miss you all back home! 

Where to begin, the last two weeks have been an absolute whirlwind of going from one place to another without spending a lot of time anywhere. Two days of travel, three days in Sydney, five days on the training station and now three days in Dubbo. Settling in at my job in Walgett, NSW will be really good. I expect to be there at least until June sometime so that will give me some time to catch my breath at least. 

   The training station was an experience I don’t think i’ll ever forget. We got there sunday late afternoon after a six and a half hour drive from Sydney through the Blue mountains which are more hills than mountains in my opinion. The ride up was pretty quiet, just imagine 11 people that don’t know each other cramped in a van, a little awkward. But once we got there and settled in everyone started to relax a little and started talking. The group consisted of one Canadian, five Germans, four English and one Icelander. So not to much diversity but enough to be interesting.

   Monday morning we were up at 7 am and got everyone together to go over what the course would be about and such and then headed into Coonabarabran to get us all outfitted with boots and hats and bank accounts. Craig, the instructor guy, is a really interesting character. He liked nothing more than to play a practical joke on people and was super good at it too. He is super intimidating and was very hard to read so I wasn’t sure half the time if he was playing us or actually serious. It got annoying at times but whatever, we put a ton of stress on him. 

   Once we got back from town we all got a lesson on quads and motorbikes, talk about chaos! Some of the students had never done anything like that before so there were bikes running into quads, sheds and just about anything that couldn’t move fast enough to escape! Since I have driven quads before and a bike isn’t much different, I had no problems so I sat back and laughed at all these people struggling to figure out the gears and such. Entertaining to say the least. Once everyone had gotten a bit of a handle on it we went out to the paddock to practice driving through ditches and puddles. Well thats where Ollie and Daniel put their quads into the pond, and Craig blew a gasket! I have never seen someone that frustrated. It was a stressful afternoon. The whole time i’m thinking that this must be the worst group to come through Outback Packers but later around the fire Craig said that we had done really well, I don’t want to imagine what a bad group is like!

   Tuesday all twelve of us piled into a jeep that should seat five, it was a clown car experience. The back seat had been taken out so that made it a little better. We then headed out to his other property where we saddled up some horses and did some horseback riding. I found out really quickly that it had been a long time since I had done anything like that, my bum was actually bruised the next day. That actually went surprisingly well compared to the bikes. Did a bit of a trail ride through the bush. At the end of the trail was a pond where we unsaddled the horses and rode them bareback into the water, it was a good time. Got some good pictures there. My horse wasn’t to pumped about swimming but eventually got him to go where I wanted him.

   After the trail ride we sorted some sheep out and sheared a few. I tried it and cut the sheep pretty bad, its hard to get the right angle to shave a squirming sheep. But apparently I did well for a first timer so that was good to hear. Every day of the week we treated some sheep that had become flyblown, the had magots in the wool and were actually being eaten alive. It was pretty disgusting.

   Wednesday we did a lot of sheep mustering, drafting and shearing. It was a probably the hardest and longest day of the week. Drafting is the australian way of saying sorting. Thursday we brought some cattle into the yard and did some drafting there as well. Put some through the cattle crush so we could check their mouths and such. The English girl, Becky, got to shove her hand up a cows bum to preg check it, without a glove. I would never have thought she would actually do it but she didn’t even hesitate to long and just shoved it right in there! It was hilarious to see everyones reactions to that! One guy was gaging and almost threw, some couldn’t watch anymore.

There were all kinds of little instances throughout the week that just amazed me how someone could be that dumb. The one german guy, Jakob, he did very few things right the entire week but I gotta admire that he never quit even though he got reamed out at least once a day.

  Friday was a little bit of fencing and chainsaw work and then that was it for the course. At four pm I was taken to town to catch a bus to Dubbo to spend the weekend and on Monday I hop on another bus and head out to Walgett to work. Dubbo is a city of 41000 people but feels like a much smaller town, at least the part im in. Its a country town with saddle shops, shearing shops and a flour mill right beside the hostel. Saturday night was St. Patty’s day and there are a few Irish staying in the hostel im in so there was a big drunken party here until four or five in the morning. Didn’t get much sleep. 

   I don’t know when I’ll have internet access again to update this blog again but I will as soon as I can. I am having a really good time here but I do miss talking to people that I know. Everyone I run into is a stranger, so getting to know some locals in Walgett will be really nice. I miss everyone back home and hope you all keep me in your thoughts and send me a message sometime eh. I would love to here from everyone.

Cheers!

   Wow! The last few days have been crazy! So much is different in my world since I walked through security at the James Richardson International Airport. I got on a little jet there and flew to Vancouver, my first time flying. Gotta say, take off is the best part of flying, landing is pretty good too but just cause you can walk again then. Since I checked in at the last minute I got stuck in an exit row with no recline for the first leg of the journey, but didn’t have anyone beside me so that was okay.

   After a short stop in Vancouver, hour and forty or so, I boarded a huge plane and this time got a seat that reclined thank goodness! And to those who are wondering, no I did not have to sit beside a fat smelly guy. So I settled in for what would turn out to be the longest night of my life, literally. By the time I saw the sun again it was almost twenty hours since it went down in Winnipeg. The flight had some rough spots about three and seven hours into it, thats always a good time. Saw Honolulu’s lights from pretty far up, 36000 ft. or so. The distance traveled from vancouver to Sydney is 7900 miles. Even with a jet thats an awfully long way! 

   When we were coming into Sydney to land it was super sunny, above the clouds. When we finally got on the ground it was pouring rain and looked like it had been raining for a while, water everywhere. Went through customs without them even sending it through the scanner, everyone else I saw had to. Little did they know I had a pocketknife in there :) Australia is very strict with quarantine stuff, I said I had been in contact with agriculture in the last 30 days and the guy wanted to look at my shoes to see if they were dirty. Not sure what he would’ve done if they had been.

  Anyway, finally made it to my hostel were I get to share a room with five other people, and my bunkbed with some girl from Germany. One of the other guys snores incredibly loud, and of course he was the first one in bed yesterday. Spent the rest of thursday just hanging around close to Base (thats the name of my hostel). 

   Then friday rolled around and thats when the party started. I figured I would just explore the city a little, see some stuff and just pretty much chill out. So I started by walking down to the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge. Got some sweet pics, also some with me wearing the Johnny’s Java shirt someone insisted I buy, Lol.

  Then just to west of the Opera is some kind of park or Botanical Gardens, beautiful place. I walked through there for about two hours, not only is it awesome, its also huge. Saw my first palm trees there, and some other tree that I don’t know the name of. I have pictures of them. So i’m walking along looking at trees and plants and its quite peaceful, suddenly about ten feet beside me this stupid cockatoo comes diving out of a tree and screams super loud, scared the crap out of me! I got to see some more of these guys yet, a lot more, there was a group of about 100 or so that hung out by some big old tree.

   So after meandering around in the Gardens for a while I decided to head to Bondi Beach. But. being from a rural area and never having to use public transit, I decided it would be more fun to walk than figure out which bus to take. Well it was more fun. Ever been lost in a city you don’t understand in a country you just got to? I have. Silly me, didn’t bring a map when exploring a city. What should have been a two hour walk turned into four and a half. I knew the general direction I wanted to go and figured it couldn’t be to hard, however, I made one wrong turn and ended up 7 kilometers away from bondi beach in something called Centennial Park. Not sure how I got there but I eventually found a map and realized that I had gone seriously wrong. But, trooper that I am, I started toward bondi again, this time with some actual directions from a woman on the street who flagged me down wondering if I was from the UK. Not sure why but she turned out to be helpful.

    When I finally got to the beach, wow! No wonder its one of the worlds top ten beaches, the sand and surf are amazing! I didn’t actually swim but went to stand in the waves, first time seeing the ocean. So I hung out there for a while just listening to the roar of the waves and watching the surfers do their thing. Pretty sweet if you ask me. After that I headed back to Base, this time taking the right road and getting back in just under two hours, my legs and feet are killing me right now, I think I walked at least thirty km today. I should try and figure out an accurate ish number. 

    Grabbed some supper from subway, I love it that the tax is included in the price, makes life easier. and headed for Circular Quay. This place is sweet, restaurants, yachts, street performers and just a whole lotta party. I was on my way back to Base when I stopped to watch a guy do some juggling stunts, ended up helping him get set up for his finale. He put a bmx on a shaky pole about fifteen feet high, kept steady by four ropes held by people from the crowd. Then he climbs the pole, gets on the bike, and gets me to throw him a knife, some one else threw him a bowling pin and an apple. Then, he stands on the bike seat, and juggles the three objects, by the time he finished he had eaten almost the whole apple without missing a beat in the juggling, It was pretty cool. 

   Then I headed back to my room and here I sit, typing this blog. Its been fun and unbelievable so far but I can’t wait to get out of the city and onto the farms. I can’t quite grasp it yet that I am here for an entire year, I keep thinking that I will be back to reality soon, but this is my new reality and its nice. Some things about this country will take some getting used to, I saw a dog driving a bmw and it took a few seconds to remember that the driver is on the other side lol! Even on the sidewalks, pedestrian traffic flows like  the cars and I keep ending up on the wrong side of the sidewalk, better figure that out before I drive anything on the road. Anyhow I need to hit the hay. I though jet lag would effect me but other than going to bed early yesterday, it doesn’t seem to be a factor. 

   Everyone take care and miss me lots, cause I miss you a little :) 

   

   This is my last weekend on Canadian soil for a while, and its cold and snowy. I really don't mind the snow, actually I was hoping for a good blizzard before I took off. Driving last night was a good time, finally got to use my winter tires in some treacherous conditions. I was thinking for a while that I could have saved myself some money and just driven my summer tires year round. The snow came a little late though, now I have no time to go snowboarding!
   It is my sisters wedding today and she was hoping for snow for her pictures and such. Well she definitely got snow. Its interesting that one would have to hope for snow at the end of February. This winter will go down as the weirdest one in my life so far. But I just want to wish my sister all the best with the wedding and first year of marriage. Since after today I will not see her until I get back from Australia.
   Packing for a year in a country with such a different climate than Canada is hard. What kind of clothes do I take? How many? Do I take the basics and just buy what I need when I get there? Actually that is kind of what I'm doing, I have bought what I didn't have and anything else that I need I can buy out there. I did a mock packing just to see what kind of room I would have in my luggage and carry on. My one piece of checked luggage can be 50 lb. and my carry on 20 lb. Well I had almost everything packed up and still had a lot of room for more stuff and it only weighed 26 lbs. I think I'll be just fine.
   Since I have never been on a jet before, I don't really know what to expect on a fifteen and a half hour flight, but I am quite sure its not going to be the most fun I've ever had. From what people have told me I won't have any leg room and chances are the person in front of me is going to recline right up in my face and the person beside my will be to big for their seat and probably smell bad. So thats what Im trying to prepare myself for and all the while hoping for the complete opposite. And an exit row seat, that would be ideal. At least I get a preview of the long flight when I fly from Winnipeg to Vancouver, thats only three hours. Vancouver to Sydney is a really long way, and its all over water. Deep scary water. If I said that I wasn't a little nervous about traveling halfway around the world by myself, I would be lying. But at the same time, I am so excited that I don't know what to do with myself sometimes!
  It doesn't seem real at times that this is actually happening, and happening in three days! I am going to miss the family and friends and hope that they miss me a little as well. But I will be seeing new sights and experiencing things that I would never experience here so maybe I will be to busy to get homesick! I am not that good at meeting new people and making new friends so this is going to kick me out of my comfort zone, every person I talk to will be a stranger. Now that does scare me! But, sometimes you gotta face your fears.
   My to do list is down to two things, put my car into storage and pack. The list was very long when I started getting ready back in October but I have been able to check things off without to much trouble along the way. While booking my flight online had a little trouble but that seems to have been straightened out and hopefully it all works when I get to the airport.
   I checked the weather for March 8th in Sydney, 22 degrees and sunny. Sounds great to me, not to hot not to cold. The time difference is a little confusing at first since I cross the International Date Line somewhere over the Pacific. But as of now, Sydney is 17 hours ahead of Winnipeg. After Daylight savings starts next week Im not sure. I leave here March 6 in the evening, travel for 22 hours and get there March 8 late morning, the 7th is going to be like four hours long. Shortest day of my life!
   To all those that I will not see again before I leave, Good Bye! If you want to  connect with me send me an email or facebook message!
 

Gotta start somewhere

Hello everyone!
     Welcome to my blog. I am not a writer as will be very obvious in the near future. However, I will do my best to describe what is going on in my world.
     As this is my pilot blog, I don't really have anything to share. But, I can tell you that I am super excited about going halfway around the world! It will be a year of firsts for me. First time on a plane, first time seeing the ocean, first time experiencing a new culture, although the Aussies speak english it will be a huge change from what I am used to. But that is exactly the point of this trip, to see stuff that I have never seen and do things that I have always wanted to do. Like dive the Great Barrier Reef, ride a horse through the Outback, visit Uluru and see some kangaroos and koala bears.
     Im a little distracted right now so this post is going to end abruptly.