charleynewman

So station life continues to be crazy and amazing and I’m 2/3 of the way through now and not really sure when to leave yet. I will be staying until early May when I’ve completed the 88days of regional work but I’m having such an incredible experience up here and not spending any money, it seems a shame to leave if I’m not ready. Going to see how it goes and how I feel once I’ve done the compulsory period of time and knowing me, I’ll wake up one morning and be like ‘I’m ready to go now’ and book a flight. So anyway… After the cow had hung for a 10 days, Robyn and I spent a morning and the whole of the following day butchering the cow & pig, mincing up the offcuts and ... read more

After a couple of days in Noosa I was bored out of my brains with beach. I got my legs waxed for the first time which was horribly painful and watched the Hobbit in the cinema which made me want to cry cos I miss Queenstown and New Zealand. I have spent the last 4weeks visiting different beaches long the Queensland coast and was feeling that if I see another beach I will scream. So made plans to get to Brisbane as soon as possible with 1 more stop to Mooloolaba which was another beach town but was very chilled, a bit gypsie, lots of people doing drugs etc so one night was enough to see it then move on. I stayed at Base in Brisbane for about a week, I arrived on a Wednesday to ... read more

I arrived in Cairns ready to hit the ground running. I went horse riding which was crap because I was with a group of beginners and all we did was walk, I know technically I'm still a beginner at riding only having been 4times but I want to go fast. The next day I did the Uncle Brians rainforest tour which was great fun, we had a crazy guide who had us singing and dancing in the bus all day, we got to play on a natural rock water slide, went to the Peter Andre Mysterious Girl waterfall where we recreated the Timotei shampoo advert, saw some beautiful natural lakes and got to see a duckbilled platypus in the wild! The next day I did 3 dives on the great barrier reef and didn't throw up ... read more

I had a horrendous train journey from Sydney to Melbourne, once again got sat next to an old woman who seemed to ask me about every action I made, everytime I looked for something in my bag, everytime I got up to go to the toilet, got something to eat etc. she had to make some sort of comment/question me on what I was doing. This was particularly annoying after 12 hours along with the 2 screaming babies in the carriage. Then I finally got to Gemma's aunt's house, where she's staying in Melbourne and she was babysitting 4 boys under 10, just perfect! After we'd finished babysitting I stayed at her aunts house then we spent Sunday lounging by the pool in the sun, heaven. I checked into my hostel (which turned out to be ... read more

So my bad mood at being on the bus all the time was severely lifted by the afternoon in Waitomo. We abseilled down waterfalls, half drowning whilst at it cos if your foot slipped on rock you got pounded by the water from above, had to rock climb in our wetsuits with wellies full of water so it felt like you had weights attached to your feet and got to marvel at the pretty glow-worms (aka cannibilistic maggots with shiny shit) on the cave ceilings. It was fantastic and exhausting and we finished feeling like battered drowned rats. We got back on the bus feeling sleepy and spent the night immersed a Maori cultural experience where the guys learnt the haka and the girls learnt how to perform with poi (small white squidgy balls which you ... read more

So my last week in Queenstown was a riot, made the most of seeing all my friends, saw Frenchy a couple of times, went out nearly every night and threw myself into it. I had move rooms once more whilst staying at Nomads and got moved out of the girls dorm that I'd been in since the start of August. So I got up, packed the bomb site that was my stuff and checked into my new room. As I opened the dorm door, I was instantly hit by the smell of dirty washing and lynx, upon entering my new room I could not see floor anywhere for all the clothes, socks, empty bottles, condom wrappers, beer crates and once of the matresses in the room had been overturned as a joke... and I was ectastic! ... read more