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I flew into Sydney - from Auckland on the 21st Jan 2003. For two days I stayed in a scummy hostel in Kings Cross, an area with a deserved reputation. I headed over to Bondi - found a superior hostel - Indy's Backpackers and hung out. Again the backpacker crowd had changed - this time lots more young English and Irish travellers - on years working visa, looking for work, and taking pretty much whatever came their way. I got on with them but didn't make any friends or meet people of a like mind.

I met up with Matt, Tank and Hamish - Matt the guy I travelled most of the states with had come out to Sydney on a working visa, got a job in the city and lived in Bondi. The lifestyle he now had was similar to working in London except he lived next to the beach and could go swimming or surfing pretty much whenever he felt like it. Tank and Hamish were friends of Matt's from home. So we spent some time drinking and chatting and listening to Belinda Carlisle - one of Tanks old favourites and on one of my Mexico City 80's compilation CDs.

I ran each morning from Bondi to Coogie on the coastal path, really enjoyed it - started getting fitter. I started looking for work. It had always been my plan to try and get some work in Australia - I had thought of fruit picking, farm work - maybe sheep shearing. But on the off chance I decided to have a look at what the IT market was like in Australia. I found two jobs that I had the skills for and applied, one was a recent advert and the other from a few weeks ago. 10 mins later my phone started ringing and didn't stop - twenty-four hours later I had a job in Brisbane starting on the next Tuesday. Didn't know much about Brisbane but when you know no one, one place seems pretty much like the next - at least to start out in.

I had a good night out on the Thursday with Matt, Hamish, Tank and my new friend Boog (Catherine) - bought a bus ticket to Brisbane with a weekend in Byron Bay.


Byron Bay.

2 days of rain. Broke a toe on the beach. But! Bumped into Steve and Kerry whom I had met in Auckland so it made it all worth while :)

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