Apples and Pears

Fishing

After spending all the money i made picking cherries over Christmas and new year in Adelaide, i am picking again in Victoria.

This time i am picking Apples and Pears, so far it has been slow going as there is a heat wave in full swing here and it has been 40 – 45 deg for the last 5 days. Hopefully in the next week it should cool down so we can work after lunch and also the picking should get better.

In my spare time i have been trying to catch a Murry Cod so far i have been unsuccessful, even after having been out on my neighbours boat in pursuit. On the plus side the neighbours caught some Yabbies which are a type of fresh water crayfish that are very tasty.

Cherries

For the last month i have been picking cherries in the Yarra Vally, i started out staying in a hostel in the countryside and got my self a job packing cherries. The people were all really nice but the packing really hurt my back so i changed to picking. Picking was great spending all day outside but very tiering 10 -12 hours a day 7 days a week up at 6 in the morning every day. Despite the hardships of fingers falling apart and numb with cold for the first 2 hours on cold days it was a lot of fun and a real mental challenge to get faster and better, on my best day i managed to pick 21 lugs so 252KG of cherries. It was really nice to spend some time living out in the country and i think i will probably do some more as it’s much cheaper with free camping than being in a city and very different way of life.

I hope you like the photos

On the road

The van all packed and ready

The Great Ocean Road

Ok so eventually after all the buying and getting the van fixed up i got on the road heading for the Great Ocean Road. Three of us left Adelaide on the 5th of November and arrived in Melbourne on the 16th, taking a fair bit longer than expected and loosing the other two on the way . It’s ok they just ran out of money they didn’t get eaten by sharks or anything.

The trip was great and the coast line is amazing, i visited Victor Harbor, Murray Bridge, Corrong National Park, Kingston S.E., Mt Gambier, Warrnambool (Where the other two got the train to Melbourne), Cape Otway, Lorne, Torquay, Melbourne.

Had a great time, the trip took a while with a few stops, a bit of an issue with the van and the loss of the other travellers but what an amazing time. I learnt to surf in Torquay, had koala’s climbing in the trees over the van, possum’s stealing my rubbish, lots of lovely beaches and loads of very friendly Australian pensioners. Sorry for the lack of photos but it’s hard to take photos when your driving round very windy roads.

Road Trip

I just got back from a road trip to pick up a friends camper van from the York Peninsula, it was

Beautiful Beaches

great to get out of the city for the first time and into the countryside. During the trip I started to get my head round the size of the country I can confirm that it really is as massive as it looks on the map. The trip was so good it was only 3 days but gave me a great idea for what I’m letting my self in for. I meet loads of very friendly locals, saw an amazing beach, learned a lot about how to catch King George Whiting and ate one that had been caught only hours before and wrote a long list of things i’m going to need for the trip, I have already bought my self an Esky (Cool-box).

My Van

My new van

I bought a van to travel around Australia from an guy who is on his way to the UK to travel. My van is a Ford Econovan 1.8L so hopefully it won’t burn too much fuel I will not be winning any land speed records but hey it’s all about the journey. The van I empty so I’m going to build a bed and buy some boxes to store everything underneath. Wooohooo my first vehicle and my first home all in one go

I meet the animals

James meets the locals

Today i went to an animal park to visit the animals of Australia. After attempting to creap up on the animals so they didn’t run away a warden walked past and shouted “you can go closer and stroke them if you want”, as you can see we then realised they were fairly used to people. We spent the rest of the afternoon making friends the animals and attempting to feed them with varying degrees of success. I had a bird land on my head thinking i was a tree and a close encounter with an Emu which was less scared of me than i was of it, there is something about having a 6 foot bird with it’s beak close to your eyes that is quite scary.

Ariving in Australia

So after a very long flight i made it over here to Adelaide, the flight was not too bad we got to stop in Hong Kong to meet a friend for dinner and watched a few films. The real life saver of the flight was the travel cushion my sister bought me from Thailand so I managed to get a few hours shut eye and didn’t really get much jet lag.

I spent most of the first week sorting out things like a bank account, mobile phone, medicare and visa but i did also have a good wonder around Adelaide and the botanic gardens and a fair bit of sitting in the sun. I have kept everyone busy with questions like a small child asking “What’s that” and “How does that work” which is no doubt sending people crazy

This week i have eaten Vegemite, drunk a few pints of Coopers Pale Ale, eaten an Oyster from Cowell and various schnitzel.

Golf

Me Playing Golf

While visiting all of the family before flying to Australia me and my granddad went for a game golf on a par 3 course, after the first game I played I was hooked we played another game before he left and I then played with my sisters and dad. Think I might have to get some clubs for the back of the van

Gliding

In the cockpit

For my birthday earlier this year i received a last minute experience voucher from my lovely sisters, i decided to use it to go gliding. We drove down on Saturday afternoon to give it a go, after i got us lost on the way we eventually got to the gliding center which is a little bus on an old army runway. After sitting around on the runway for a few hours watching the gliders and planes taking off and landing it was my turn. I opted to do the tug flight where a plane pulls you up for a bit extra as the winch launches were only getting 10 mins in the air due to wind conditions. The flight was amazing we got towed up to 3500 ft and released, the tutor showed me how everything worked and gave me control of the glider, which was great but felt very strange as there are about 5 things you have to do at once and being a man multi-tasking got the better of me. It is a really amazing experience to be flying and with such an amazing view i would recommend it to everybody.