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Published: March 11th 2009
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Midway Point at Night
My street lit by moonlight It's now March 11th and i have only 2 and a half weeks left in Tassie before heading to Sydney and completing the final 3 weeks of my trip.
Since my last blog i have been working hard, watching all 180 episodes of Seinfeld on DVD (there's little else to do in my spare time without a vehicle and Aussie TV is really that bad), and still getting out and doing some sight-seeing where possible. I gave up on trying to get a job at Dominoes Pizza (8 weeks later and i am still waiting for their call so perhaps i'll still get a chance to work there once my trousers arrive) and instead ventured across the road to Mcdonald's. Again, i had to apply online but this time i immediately got a reply and was asked to come in for a trial shift. It wasn't long before i was serving Happy Meals and cleaning tables and was even awarded 'Employee of the Week' in only my second week there (this despite occasionally trying to charge people in pounds rather than dollars). So, another string to my bow and perhaps a new career is on the cards if i am
unable to force myself back into London upon my return. Most people there are very young but everyone has been friendly and i'm actually enjoying working. It will almost be a shame to leave. Almost. The only downside is it's almost an hours walk to work which is fine unless i am on a 7am start. Colder weather is approaching now as the summer draws to a close and i even had to wear a scarf to work on one of my early starts last week.
In mid February The J's went away to Perth for 2 weeks leaving me house-sitting. The first week i had plenty of work to keep me busy, but by week 2 i was getting bored with just the voices in my head for company so went onto gumtree to see who was out there. I met Angela from Germany, who had just arrived from the mainland for a week and was looking for fellow travellers to hang out with. She wanted to explore the South and wanted people to help share the costs. We met in Hobart and went up Mount Wellington again, although this time the cloud was so thick i could
hardly see a few feet in front of me, and then had a night out drinking. A quiet night out as Hobart is so small so we ended up with cheap wine back at the hostel. There we formed our plan to go to Port Arthur and put up an ad on the noticeboard for any other like minded people. We were eventually joined by Olivia from Switzerland after one or two others had shown an interest but then dropped out.
The day trip to Port Arthur was cold, wet and windy. Still, we enjoyed ourselves, stopping by many sites and lookout points such as Tasmans Arch, Pirates Bay, Blowhole and Doo Town. Doo Town was a small group of houses all named with the word 'Doo' in it. Nobody seemed to know why but it was good fun, if a tad pointless driving through spotting 'Doo F%#k all', 'Doo me', 'Doo little' and various other 'Doo' phrases on the front of houses. Once at Port Arthur itself we visited the historic town and went on a guided tour learning all about the history of this 'natural penitentiary' for colonial prisoners.
Whilst Angela was in town we also
visited Seven Mile Beach (which is seven miles long), only to walk for a bit as it is far too cold to go anywhere near the water, and spent an afternoon at Salamanca Market back in Hobart.
From now to until March 29 i'm hoping to get as many hours working as possible in a last ditch attempt to bring my spending money up to the same level as my sisters for when she joins me. We'll spend a further week in Australia before flying to New Zealand and my last country before heading home.
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I was in Port Arthur a few months after this http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/28/newsid_4297000/4297487.stm There was a small memorial there and some flowers. I wonder if it is still there. And a strange but true story. At Port Arthur there is an outdoor restaurant so we all had lunch there. The salad was made from leaves picked from the garden out back and had worm on them! I think 2 people's salad's had worms! Suffice to say we left sarcastic comments in the restaurant guestbook as in Very Fresh Salad!!!!!! Enjoyed the worms and many more. Can't remember of course what we wrote after all these years