Advertisement
Published: October 17th 2006
So we landed in Perth in the late afternoon (Thursday 13th July). We went to our Northbridge hostel which was lovely and then walked into the city to explore. We instantly fell in love with Perth and thought (still do) that its a great place.
On the Friday we started early - ready to hunt for work (some of you will be glad to know that we had to work for a bit - not all travelling!) Well, we didn't have to do much of a 'hunt' as we walked into a travel recruitment place that we had been recommended and got offered a job that, apparently was just perfect for us, straight away. It was working in a hotel in Dampier called the Dampier Mermaid Hotel & Motel. Well, we'd never heard of Dampier and it was about 16 hours north of Perth. Jamie would be doing maintenance work and Karen would be doing housekeeping and working in the bistro at night. We considered it for all of 5 minutes and were quite excited at the prospect so we accepted! We walked out slightly stunned that it had all been that simple!!! Our bosses were actually in Perth for
Freemantle Street
One of the nice streets in Freemantle!the weekend so we were due to go to their apartment on Sunday night and then drive up with them on the Monday. So, it was all moving so fast - we'd only been in Perth 5 minutes - and now we were leaving in 2 days!
We had a hectic weekend looking around Perth and trying to fit all of our sightseeing in. We decided that we'd come back to Perth after working though so that we could see the rest. Sunday arrived and we headed to our new bosses house. When we arrived it all seemed disorganised - basically we were supposed to be following his 2 sons up to Dampier in a car in the morning. One problem though - the sons weren't ready to go and were leaving at night instead. Bondy (the boss) and his girlfriend were worried about us driving up in the morning on our own - such short notice and not very prepared. Anyway, it all worked out great from our point of view because they decided that they didn't need us in Dampier until the following week so we could stay in their apartment. Excellent - it was so nice
Behind Bars
Us enjoying a tour of Freemantle Prison. of them. Basically we could stay for the whole week and leave the following Saturday to be in Dampier on the Sunday (start work on Monday). There was also a car for us to use whilst we were there, a fully stocked fridge, a hot-tub, and they had left petrol money for the way up!!! It all felt a little surreal!
Turned out we had a great week - we got to see the other parts of Perth that we had missed - Freemantle etc and also meant that we didn't have to spend the extra money coming back to Perth after work. We loved it. We spent a couple of days in Freemantle and visited Freemantle Prison which was really interesting. We had busy days exploring and getting to know the city better.
Saturday soon came round and it was time to start our epic drive! We left on Saturday morning - drove 8 hours and stayed in a really strange, eerie roadhouse on the way. Then on the Sunday we drove for another 8 hours. The drive was awful - there is just absolutely nothing around and its quite a scary feel - so far away
Jamie Enjoying the Hot-Tub
The hot-tub in our apartment for the week!!! from anything or anywhere! We arrived in Dampier about 6pm, settled in our room and got introduced to most people. Sunday nights there is the barbeque night so we had some food and drinks with people.
Dampier is a really small mining and fishing town. The hotel is one of the only pubs and the hotel has a lot of workers that stay for a long time, or often come back frequently because of work. To sum it all up - working in Dampier was an experience!!! We had some great times and met some lovely people. We also had some frustrating times and couldn't wait to leave!!! The local people of Dampier were hilarious and the pub has plenty of characters who work there too. We often joked that they should do a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the place but, joking aside, they would make an absolute fortune if they did. It would be addictive stuff and would keep everyone entertained for hours. Someone said that the hotel was a cross between Fawlty Towers and Big Brother and that is spot-on!!! There was Billy the man who was in charge of the bar and its stock - he was
Northampton!!!
We passed through Northampton in WA on our drive upto Dampier! an alcoholic who constantly drank Castlemaine XXXX Gold in cans (the only reason that the pub stocked it!!!) One of the girls actually saw a cockroach crawl out of his beard and you could quite believe it - he's filthy!!! Scruff was also an odd character - he lived in a caravan outside of our room and stocked up the bar at 3am. He used to grunt at people and barely say a word (cheerful chap!!!) Rik was the man who drove the courtesy bus everyday but did the food cooking on a Sunday - in his view he was 'the anchor' that held the goodship Dampier Mermaid Hotel steadfast and sure!!! Shane, Snowy and Smoky had lived at the hotel for years - Shane lived in a bus and Snowy (his brother) lived in the staff quarters (called the Swamp!!!) All 3 of them had a Harley Davidson and were good fun - many a night was had drinking with them. Parties tended to end up at the bus!!!
We worked with some great people who we really got on with - the Housekeeping 'crew' were Kim - an adorable New Zeland lady who is there temporarily while
Dampier Mermaid Hotel
Another day in paradise....... her husband works in Dampier, Sina and Sandra who were hilarious and kept us laughing, Adrienne ('The Divine Miss C') from Canada, Claire and Andrea from Ireland, Monica from Norway, Lien from Vietnam and Sophie from Melbourne. There was a complete mix of people - most of them travelling and just working for a couple of months like us. We miss them still. Gus and Tina worked in the kitchen and they were great - really nice people (also from Ireland but they live in Oz). Tina left a couple of weeks before us and it wasn't the same when she went - the Bistro wasn't as good - she was a great laugh! Last, but not least, was Terry - who Jamie worked for. He is english but has lived in Oz for 25 years. He has the greatest sense of humour and is also a music guru (he used to work for EMI). He and Jamie got on really well and Jamie still really misses him!!! Andrea once said that if I wanted to know what Jamie would be like in 30 years to look at Terry - and its quite true!!! Terry said every morning: "another fine
Dampier Bay
View of Dampier Bay from the hotel. day in paradise!"
We had loads of good party nights there - alcohol is quite a feature in Dampier (theres not much else to do!) Jamie's birthday was spent there which a really good day & night. We watched the footy Grand Final in the day (Aussie football that is, not the 'proper' football) - Dampier Sharks V's Karratha Falcons. In the evening we all had drinks in the beer garden. Lien cooked us a pizza and dessert for everyone to share which was really tasty (and sweet of her). We all ended up on the bus.
We were in Dampier for a total of 8 weeks. At the end we were ready to move on and start seeing places again but we were sad to say goodbye. Our last night was lovely - we went for a seafood meal with a group of us and then had drinks back at the hotel. We didn't get much sleep. It was also exciting as, at the very last minute, Adrienne had decided to come with us to Broome - yeah!!! Monica had unfairly got the sack that day (Thursday - our last day) so Adrienne quit too(never a dull
Up, Up and Away!!!
Jamie is the speck in the distance flying our England kite (courtesy of mum and dad!) moment in Dampier!) The party ended up on the bus!!!
On Friday 15th September we left Dampier early in the morning. Claire dropped us 2 and Adrienne off at the coach stop in Karratha (the next town on). We then had a 12 hour coach journey to Broome. We arrived in Broome in the evening and Sina and Sandra picked us up. They had left the hotel on Tuesday and so were still in Broome. We had a nice meal and caught up with all the 'gossip'! Sina and Sandra were staying at a caravan park near the beach so they suggested we move there. So, the 3 of us stayed in the hostel that we'd booked on the Friday night, but then moved to the caravan park on Saturday morning. We managed to get a fab cabin - it was like a mini apartment, and it was so cheap, so we were all very happy. We had a great few days in Broome with the 5 of us together in that cabin. We went to Cable Beach for the sunset which was amazing. The beach is huge and you can drive onto it. We took 'nibbles' and wine
Painting In Progress!
If you look closely you can see Jamie's painting efforts - he was doing the burgandy!!! and drove on and sat watching the sunset - it was a fab moment! We went to Cable Beach on the Sunday night too because it was just lovely before. We went to the markets and brought ear candles! We had never heard of them before but Adrienne had told us to try them. We all brought them so had a bizarre evening in the cabin doing our ear candles on each other!!! They were brilliant though (they draw all the wax out - yuk!!!)
On the Monday (18th) it was time for us to leave Broome and Western Australia. Our flight was in the evening so we had a good day together. We were sad and it was a tearful farewell at the airport. We then had 2 flights, overnight, to Melbourne.................................................................................(We still miss the lovely people we worked with!)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 9; qc: 61; dbt: 0.0632s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
anonymous
non-member comment
wow i think that is the most beautifuls pics ive sen so far! take it you guys ran outof money?! No old orleans out there then! looks like youve met some cool friends too, keep on sendin these blogs. speak son jess x x x