The Opportunity of a Lifetime
I wasn’t sure that STA could do it… sending 150 people to Australia for only 10 pounds was pretty incredible (especially as I managed to grab myself a ticket) but they’ve outdone themselves with this new opportunity. How would you like to be sent around the world on the trip of a lifetime, all expenses paid? Well I certainly would! And the only stipulation, you have to document your adventures via the use of social media; blogs, videos, photos, twitter etc. Sound like a pretty sweet deal?
So what’s holding you back?! As Mankini Malph pointed out, phrases such as ‘You’re so lucky!’, ‘It’s dangerous there’ and ‘Back to the real world’, are at the end of the day just lame excuses.
Travel is about adventure, about putting yourself into a situation which is outside of your comfort zone!
So if you are a person who spends all day dreaming about experiencing life outside of your box, who envisions themselves riding a camel over Egypt, or frolicking in the lagoons of Ko Phangnan then do me a favour and follow some simple steps.
1. Go find your camera
2. Film a wicked 2 minute video of yourself explaining why you should be chosen.
3. Upload your video
4. Create a profile
5. Get yourself some votes
6. Go experience the world
It’s pretty simple isn’t it! Just check out the World Travel Intern site, and start getting creative.
Good Luck!!
A Slice of Suburbia
Over the last few months I’ve come to love the place I’m calling home. Granted, I’m not living in right in central Sydney, but this suburbia has a charm of it’s own.
I’m living in Dee Why, which is situated relatively close to Manly, on the Northern beaches. It’s only a 5 minute walk to the beach and a selection of delightful cafes.
For breakfast, On Shore has a fantastic selection and the staff are extremely welcoming. Lunch can be spent at the Sandbar sampling delicious salads and taking advantage of the free wifi. Alternatively Wok Bar offers a cheap and cheerful lunch menu where you can try there delicious range of Dim Sum. Dinner could be spent at Wildwater, who offer great cooked on the spit food or you could try Brazilian cuisine at Coco Mar. So much choice! If you’re looking for just drinks then you should head to Stella Blu, which is synonymous with Dee Why, or Deck 23. Both of which make delicious cocktails and often have a musician on some nights of the week.
Dee Why is definitely a pre-drinks place though. If you fancy a dance then you have to head into Manly, which just a bus or a taxi fare away. Theres heaps of places to go here, and on a Sunday the Wharf Bar really gets going. From Manly you can catch the ferry across to Circular Quay and from there a night out in Sydney awaits.
Theres a plethora of choice when it comes to beaches in the area, although Dee Why still remains a firm favourite of mine. Especially since its such a short walk from the where I’m living. Its also a bit of a locals beach, it’s not inundated with tourists so it’s never that rammed.
Basically, if you in the Northern Beaches area, come and check out Dee Why!
For more information, just CLICK HERE
Crissy!
It was a different type of Christmas that I experienced this year. Granted I was surrounded by family and friends who I adore, but mountains of prawns were certainly a change from a mammoth roast. It’s also not often that I go for a dip just after my dinner.
So we arrived on Christmas Eve, had time for a quick change and a hello to everyone before we departed en masse to the Laurieton Hotel where we counted down to Christmas, and I had one to many.
The alarm was set for 7am the next morning, well I couldn’t miss Santa!! And I dragged myself wearily out of bed to be met by a beaming Jude and a large glass of champers. Merry Christmas everyone! At 8am we sat down for presents, with even little Ernie getting involved… so cute.
Baby Daniel came out dressed in a full Santa suit which was adorable and apparently a massive improvement from his Dad TJ’s previous Christmas ensemble, including a lime green mankini.
The feast was served at about 12, which was delicious. Yummy, salivating now, just remembering it! With lunch completed, a dip was in order, and a game of pool volleyball began. The girls won of coarse!
And then on to the main event of the evening! The great Aussie quiz!! Now Mark has been building up to this quiz for ages, and we were all pretty nervous and drunk when we sat down to sit it. Trying to interpret legendary saying such as ‘habbas’ (half past) and ‘munny’ (Monday) lobry (library) was nigh impossible. Honestly would you have guessed them? But Richie came through the winner and walked away with the prize, a boomerang engraved with Most Australian Pom! Which he has defended to the death since.
The drinking continued well into the night.
With bleary heads we woke early ready for the Woop Woop Cup, the local county races, an Isaacs tradition. Dressed up to the nines we ate some great steak sandwiches, drank Alco pops and gambled away lots of money with few winnings to show for it. Basically a great day!
We couldn’t go down to the farm without taking the boat out for a spin, so we forced Jase to load it up the next day with the water skis and the biscuit. A day on the water commenced, absolutly epic!!
I wasn’t too impressed when Richie fell off when we were on, and ruined our perfect score. Although I was cracking up in giggles when I realised that the cries of ‘my balls, my balls’ were because his shorts had fallen off, and the crown jewels were hitting the water. Classic!
Yep, I love the farm!
G’day mate
So I haven’t updated my blog in a while, apologies to anyone who has been interested. So whats been going on…..
Umm well nothing that exciting really. I have myself a job! Well two jobs actually. I’m working at a restaurant in Dee Why , and also at Liquorland. My RSA did come in handy then! So I’m basically working 24-7 at the moment, which means I haven’t seen as much of Sydney as I would of liked to, however I am earning and saving lots of money. So I will hopefully be able to do a bit of travelling next year with the girls! Yippee!
Apart from work I’ve just been chilling out a lot by the beach, although the tan is refusing to come still, and having lots of coffees with Jo and Sarah. It’s Jo’s birthday this Saturday so I believe a night out in Manly is on the cards.
The last night we all went out in Manly was jokes, and it was the night I met all of Geoff’s fellow cricketers, the infamous Manly squad. The guys are heaps nice, crazy loose, and the whole evening was pretty hilarious! But yeah, life is sweet!
Managed to catch up with Maz the other day as well! Met up with her on Manly beach and just giggled about how surreal life is out here. Looking forward to catching up with Chris aswell who arrives in Sydney this weekend.
Anyways, best go carry on with the shopping, Christmas is coming…. madness!
STA loving…
My flight
First and foremost, if it wasn’t for STA I wouldn’t be presently chilling out in Australia, writing this from a cafe overlooking the beach, with a delicious glass of wine beside me. The 10 pound pom promotion, to celebrate 30 years of STA travel offered 150 people the chance to fly to Australia for only 10 quid. I was one of the lucky few to grab myself a ticket, and as well as getting the opportunity to fly to Australia for only 10 pounds, I also made a whole heap of fantastic new friends. The queue brought together people from all walks of life but who shared one common goal; the desire to travel. Everyone was extremely dedicated and we had a whole heap of fun. The queue was more like a festival and when I made it in the staff were extremely helpful and really could not do enough for us.
Tax pack
I also purchased a tax pack at the same time as I got the ticket and this didn’t work out quite as well. Worth about 25 pounds and pretty useless really. When you get to Australia you can apply for a tax number online, employers don’t need it until you’ve been working for them for two weeks and when you apply online its free!
STA Travelbuzz
Last but not least, of course there is STA Travelbuzz. Whilst we were in the queue a company brought us round some munch and handed out business cards asking us to participate as travel bloggers. I was planning on beginning a blog anyway so I sent them an email, and Cam returned my email. She invited me along to meet a few other explorers at a do that STA were holding to celebrate 30 years of STA travel, where I met Maz (who was in the queue behind me), Chris (also planning on traveling round Oz) and AJ. STA Travelbuzz features your blog and this results in you getting a whole heap more hits to your site, aswell as inviting you along to some great nights out!
So there you have it… full on STA love
RSA
On Wednesday I decided it was time to bite the bullet and do my RSA, now I’ve been umming and arring about doing this but since I was starting work (yippee I got a job at a restaurant on Dee Why beach) and since it is a necessity if you want to serve alcohol I figured I should really crack on. Now for those of you that don’t know, the RSA or the Responsible Service of Alcohol, is a legal requirement if you want to serve alcohol in Australia, i.e. bar work, hotel work, bottle shop etc. Some employers will turn a blind eye if you don’t have it, but you really should take it.
For $85 I bought myself a days tuition. Well 6 hours in a small room with 30 other students, and it was the most boring thing I’ve ever done. The course focuses on who you can’t serve and what you should do if someone is intoxicated. Because in Australia it is illegal to serve someone who is intoxicated, i.e., you can’t serve a drunk man a beer. So if your drunk you won’t get served, madness to me. When I go out on a night on the lash, I have the intention of having a few, but if your a little bit pissed in Australia it’s illegal to serve you any more. But honestly I wouldn’t worry, I was battered on Saturday night and they kept serving me, but I think this course is just designed to freak out every Pommie in Oz on purpose. Scare us into changing from the English yobs we truly are. Anyways, it was a bloody boring day… I learnt that when you want someone to leave you
1. Stop serving them any alcohol
2. Ask them to leave and escort them out
3. Call the police if necessary to get them to leave
No shit sherlock!
Another fascinating piece of information I learnt is that you can’t serve someone who is under-18 and you should ID them, but surely thats just common sense! Anyways I passed my test and got myself a certificate so now I’m legally allowed to keep the grog flowing, WOOP!
My first morning
I had some pretty serious jet lag when I first arrived, waking up at 4 am for the first few days. Although this might sound horrendous, I loved it, because it meant I was able to watch the sun rise on the beach. Which was breath taking. And if anyone saw me standing on Dee Why beach, yes I was that strange Pommie girl dancing around in excitement!
Goodbye Carnage
So it was a weekend of fond farewells and goodbyes before I departed to Australia. Oh and lots of drinking….
Friday 6th November
Lindsey, Louise, Mia and myself decided we would go out for a nice dinner at Prezzo in Old Amersham. Of corse being the bargain finders that we are we jumped onto the Prezzo website and found ourself a nice little discount, 2-4-1 we’ll take that. So with a classy dinner in mind we settled down to some good food and some great wine. However as soon as the dinner decided to wind down we decided that we would make a special trip to a ’special’ (??) destination… bonjour Revs. Our classy dinner ended up out the window once we got our hands on the six shot sticks. Put together six of the most rancid shots you can find, charge a exorbitant amount for them and you have found yourself a revs special. After necking down a vile chili shot followed by an equally repugnant chocolate one I was all set to go. Cue Mia finding the greasiest pig in the whole place and amusing us by pretending she was a contestant in Strictly Come Dancing, you’ve got some moves! Lindsey attempting to prove that you can drink wine through your eye and Louise being a responsible driver.
Saturday 7th November
Ouch, sore head!! Very sore head!! Very hungover, bleary eyed, and convinced I am going to puke everywhere. Mixing drinks is not a good idea; wine, vodka and rancid shots….. bleugh! I was dreading the drive to Bournemouth, which is where we were headed in order to celebrate Gracies birthday. We finally arrived at about 5, after being stuck in ‘average speed checks’ of 50 mph all the way down the M25.
It was a Barbie and Ken fancy dress theme! Which is pretty malleable to be honest. I was a police barbie, Louise was army, Gabi was rave, Jessie was prisoner and the birthday girl was ballerina! There was a whole heap of other barbies as well ranging from football barbie to a pink legging wearer Ken. It was so good to see Grace whose at Uni in Bournemouth and also Jessie who had travelled down from Exeter!!
So the evening began with plenty of booze flowing at Grace’s uni let house and a cheeky game of ring of fire. Then it was on to one of the uni halls which is located nearby to meet a whole heap of other people, then en masse we wandered down to the town. 1st destination was Walkabout, where shots were a quid and a snakebite was 3 pounds. Beauty! And the music of choice… cheesy pop hits of course. So after busting some moves to the good old Spice Girls and Cotton Eyed Joe we decided to make a move. 2nd destination was Bliss, were we headed down the basement and had a groove. However Andy and I weren’t pacified and bullied the DJ upstairs into playing Cheryl Cole which turned into an X-factor mix, we had Alexandra Burke, Robbie Williams and even a bit of Whitney Houston. Eventually others joined us from the basement area and we were stomping to our hearts content. Jessie had to leave so had a tearful goodbye, I’m going to miss that girl so much! Then Gracie and I popped out for a ciggie, which prompted her to announce to the surrounding revelers that her ‘best friend was leaving for Australia and I’m going to miss her (glug glug)’, well that is just about what I could make out in between sobs. And when I say sobs I mean the racking heaving type, which wouldn’t stop. Every time I went near her for the rest of the evening there would be a wail and then the tears would begin… oops! Alcohol and goodbyes don’t mix! I’ll miss you too Gracie! So we eventually stumbled in at around 5.30 and settled down to a good nights sleep on Gracies couch.
Sunday 8th November
Woke at 1.00 p.m. … WHAT!! I fly to Oz the next day and had heaps to do, like umm finish packing. Slightly overslept. So we bundled everything back into the car and set off to make the journey. Bloody average speed checks! I arrived home just in time to go to the pub to say goodbye to John and Kara who I worked with at the club and Digger was also there. Cue a few too many pints and much laughter! The best colleagues any one could ask for! And for dinner a roast dinner courtesy of my little brother Arthur! A classic English sunday, pub then roast, what more could you ask for on your final evening?!
Monday 9th November
Departure day!! Gabi, Lindsey and Louise popped round for breakfast, pancakes, once again courtesy of the little bro and we just sat chatting whilst I flung the final few bits and bobs into the suitcase. It didn’t feel like we were saying goodbye at all, I was just so high on anticipation. Mum drove me to the airport and dropped me off in floods of tears. So after a big hug I unloaded my luggage and off I went. The evening before I had checked in online, and changed my seat so that I would now be chilling next to Sam and George, two fellow 10 pound poms! We caught up once we had got through security, where George had caused a mini security scare when he was pretending to take pics and promptly got his camera confiscated until he proved he hadn’t taken any pics. We decided to go and grab some breakfast and settled into a proper English fry up and a pot of tea. We had a little shop and then the plane was boarding so we wandered over to the departure gate. Plane arrived, I’m a bag of nerves and excitement. A few final calls to family and we board. I love that feeling when a plane takes off, your stomach starts doing a little dance and you begin to relax into the flight. So what can you do to make time pass whilst on a 10 hour flight. In flight entertainment of course! I watched two movies and they both made me tear up, pretty embarrassing when you consider one is a animated cartoon one called Up, it was poignant I swear! George and Sam’s adventure sounds insane! I can’t wait to hear about how there stay in the infamous firetrap of a hotel proceeds. We spilt at Hong Kong where there journey was to start and I was to catch a connecting plane to Sydney. Considering boarding for the connecting flight was a 8.30 am and our plane touched down at 8.35 am it was a bit of a rush to make it. But I did 
I slept almost the entire way there on the flight and woke up to breakfast being served (which was in fact dinner) about an hour before we touched down. The plane lands and I almost run through customs and security, dropped my bags and gave Geoff the biggest hug I could muster. Then stood back and laughed, seems he’d decided to grow a beard whilst I’d been gone. But I was here, I’d arrived! G’day Australia!
Reminiscing
Ok, so this might get a little deep, but since I have time to kill I figured I would write down my thoughts. Here I am, just chilling out on the bus on the way to Cirencester, in order to say goodbye to my Dad and his partner. I’ve already had a weekend of goodbyes, and there were plenty of tears flowing at work on both Saturday and Sunday. But it got me thinking about how many times we have to say goodbye to people.
There are people that I was very close to growing up, but with unspoken words we often said goodbye to our friendships. There are big moments of change as you move through childhood where people take different directions, the main one being a change of school. When primary school finished, many of my friends went to another school and we all drifted apart, but that was ok because I had found a new group. The next big change was after GCSE’s when people either left for work, college or another sixth form. I had a very tight knit group of friends; there were about 10 of us that were inseparable, but many left and with everybody having busy schedules I’m sad to say we never actually managed to get all 10 of us together at the same time again. Maybe it was because we were lazy and didn’t make enough effort but thinking back on the jokes we shared when we younger it really is a shame!
Now everyone is heading off in different directions again, spread around the country and even the world and it’s becoming even harder to all catch up. This is where the magic of social media comes in, without things like E-Mail, Facebook and Skype I know those unspoken goodbyes would probably come drifting through again. It’s so much easier to keep in touch with those you love nowadays. This is where I think travel has changed the most in 30 years, without communication friendships sour and it is easier to stop this from happening nowadays.
I know the goodbyes that I will say in the next week aren’t finite, but that doesn’t make them any easier to say. I’m just looking forward to saying G’day to a new chapter in my life.
