Advertisement
Published: September 27th 2015
London-Perth 6th - 7th September 2015
Well I'm finally in Oz after what felt like a lifetime in the sky. Flight 1 - London to Hong Kong was great with me having a whole row of seats (3) to myself so when it was time for some shut eye I could lay flat. My gluten free food was ok, maybe a little over generous with the fruit but overall not bad. The 3 hour lay over was fine, then came the final leg. I was sat on the end chair in the middle section where the freezing cold air con blasted in my face. In response to asking if the temperature of the air con could be turned up, I was promptly given three blankets to shut me up!!! By this point I was exhausted and was struggling to stay awake. My head kept bobbing back and forth like the Churchill dog until I eventually dropped off. At last I managed a few hours but it was so uncomfortable. The food on this flight was more dissapointing with me asking for an alternative. I scored some left over Cheese from Business Class! Wow that made me feel special. 😉 Anyway,
8 hours of misery and Flight 2 - Hong Kong to Perth concluded. I had arrived. It was now 23 hours on from when I'd left London and it was 10:30pm in Perth and pitch black.
Perth 7th -11th September 2015
When I got to my accomodation I was a little worse for ware, only then to be kept awake until 3am and me suddenly realising why I had refused to stay in hostel's thus far! The saving grace, I had my own room and bathroom. I could'nt quite understand why Australia was so expensive as the cost of this place would have got me some fantastic dwellings in Europe!!! It is all part of the experience I kept telling myself and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger! I definitely had the dreaded jet lag and it took a good day or two for me to straighten out my body clock. I was really struggling with this, confusing days and time zones. It didn't help either that by 6:15pm it is completely dark, just like someone has switched the lights off! Apparently it goes dark early, all over Oz so I needed to get used to it.
Perth was nice and a real mix of modern and traditional. I loved wandering through the cultural centre and doing the self guided City Art Tour and the Convicts and Colonial tour which came with a downloadable audio guide. I visited the Bell Tower situated right on the esplanade which is an amazing glass building with copper sails that was purpose built to house Bells taken from St Martin in the Field church Trafalgar Square that have been rung out over the past 600 years. The Bells were given to the people of Western Australia to commemorate Australia's Bicentenary in 1988. It was fantastic to wander and take in the sights of this laid back smallish city. The weather though being a mix of extremes, from 31°C one day, to chilly and raining the next, brought with it some poor judgement from me. The beautiful hot day encouraged me to take a dip in the pool where I was staying. It looked so inviting from my balcony with the sun beating down. There were a few others milling about when I got down there so I dropped my bits and pieces on a nearby sun lounger and sauntered in!!! I
dont mean I stripped off for those of you, misreading that. ? The one thing I did not expect was it's arctic temperature. I was now submerged. Not to look a complete plonker in front of the youngsters I braved a few lengths until I could no longer feel my legs. Luckily the heat of the sun quickly thawed me out and that was the last time I went near it!!! The following day it chucked it down. Worried also about the wet weather as I would soon be working outside, I shopped about for some wet weather over trousers. Well as you all know unfortunately I was not given supermodel height within my genes so most pairs were too long. I needed a pair with an elasticated bottom. Great I found one, only thing, they were the colour of Mr Blobby! With no other choice I left the shop with them and prayed for sunshine. I couldn't believe it was Friday already and it was time to go to Fremantle for my Conservation Experience.
Fremantle 11th - 25th September 2015
I jumped on the train and made it down to Fremantle. The induction took about an hour
and this included loading us up with food and dropping us, at the accommodation. The other wonderful news is that we wouldn't start work until Monday so I had nearly three full days in which to explore the area. It appeared there was only 3 international volunteers, a Japanese girl who was doing her second week, a Japanese guy who was new and me. We would be joined by lots of locals on each of the days so this would be a good opportunity to pick up some tips and insider knowledge. At the accommodation which was another backpacker hostel we were taken to our rooms or should I say room to start with! To my utter disgust they had arranged to put us in an 8 bed mixed dormitory! Well the mixed bit I could get over, 8 others put me slightly off but when I walked in there and saw it was like a pig sty, I had a complete meltdown! 😊 I was happy to push boundaries but this was a step too far especially when there was a bloke half asleep in there who looked completely stoned! It was at this point the host took me
to a female only dormitory which is supposed to house 4 individuals with only one other person in it. My heart rate started to come down and calm resumed. If this was going to be my "home" which was now to be shared for the next two weeks, I needed to at least be able to cope with it! It was odd but my last place now didn't seem that bad. ? Luckily for me my new room mate was lovely. An Italian called Morena who had been in Oz for nearly a year. Given my free time and the fact my conservation experience would not involve Rottnest Island, a visit was now a must and some exploration of Fremantle needed to be undertaken. Over the next few days the weather again was abit unsettled but I took a walk around the area and explored the surrounding coastline. It was beautiful. Bather's Beach, which was a 2 minute walk away from where I was staying, was small but gorgeous. The sand like a fine powder and pale yellow in colour with the sea, a sparkling bluey green. My visit to Fremantle couldn't have been timed better and I got to
witness the 20th year procession for the Maria SS Del Tindari. Popular legend refers to the Black Madonna arriving in the Sicilian town of Tindari after a merchant sought shelter because of a storm. After the storm the ship set sail again leaving the Madonna behind. The Fremantle Black Madonna statue was commissioned in 1996 and the procession held every year since. The Statue was carried from St Patrick's Church through Fremantle to the Esplanade where a fireworks display followed. The funniest thing about this, the display happened at 2:30 in the afternoon in glorious sunshine at which point thats all that could be seen was smoke trails. I just kept thinking, 'they must have cost a few bob, what a waste, given it goes dark so early'. I think at this point it was starting to dawn on me that I was actually the other side of the world and that they were bonkers. I can't say I was starting to miss home, but definitely my home comforts and at my time of need I managed to find Great British Bake Off to watch, so all was good again. I was settling into hostel life when some new housemates
turned up which I wasn't so keen on. Cock roaches of all things. I'm not sure if it was the laid back vibe seeping into me from this very hippy horizontal destination but I gave less of a reaction to them, than I had done to the initial room they went to house me in. Over the next week, routine ensued with me attending different locations around Fremantle for my Conservation Experience. It was an amazing way to see the real Western Australia (WA). We started at a Sand dune location near a naturist beach called Swanbourne. I saw a snake within the first hour. Settle down, not that kind 😉 , a real Australian Western Brown snake that is venomous. Luckily he was quite chilled as he slithered towards a bush on his merry way! Our task was to remove non native species of Carnation weed, Wild Brassica and Gozania. This was in line with Australia's conservation concept of removing non native species from natural areas. Over the next few days we stayed around this location and I saw Bobtails and Kookaburra's in the wild. On the third day in I made a very big rookie mistake. I forgot
to use the facilities before leaving that morning. I was busting for the loo when we arrived and needed a wee (not to be too graphic). Laura, the Group Leader on that day pointed out the Public Toilets. I speedily made my way to them and to my horror they were locked. There were a few neighbouring Buildings which I scanned for life. One had a Billboard outside so I went over, opened the door and shouted "Hello". There was no response so made my way a little further inside. Still no-one about but I spied the toilets. I thought I would use them quickly and explain myself on the way out if I passed anyone. So in the middle of taking care of the situation I heard this alarm starting to sound. I quickly sorted myself out, washed up and left the toilets. Outside the toilet door, the sound was deafening and I began to fill with dread. It'd only gone and set the bloody building alarm off. I couldn't believe it. I know being discreet is not my best quality but even I thought I could take a pee without creating this much attention!!! I made my way
out of the building at speed, frantically looking for someone to seriously apologise to. It was no good, there was no-one about. I decided I needed to inform 'Laura' about the mishap and check with her, what was best to do because at this point, I was sure I had been captured on CCTV. As I was explaining the whole sorry tale, 2 Rangers turned up. I said, I would just like to take a minute, to explain to them and we could then go and start the days work. Now thinking the Rangers were responding to the alarm that was continuing to sound I started waving my arms about, gesturing it was me and I was sorry. When I got to them I recanted the whole sorry tale only to be told they knew nothing about the alarm going off in the building but had merely turned up to open the Public Toilets!!!!! To this day, I remain at large as I never did find anyone to explain or apologise too. I'm just praying I'm not stopped when I try to leave W.A.. I was just relieved that the following day our location changed and I was never going
back to that place again. The new location was quite nice, it was near Nedlands Yacht Club. It involved the removal of Lupins from a bank to start then further weed removal nearer the water. It was a beautiful location and we could see Ospreys circuling above. The following day we were a little further down the coast next to the water and we saw a family of Dolphins. It was more weed removal here but this experience so far had been fantastic with the Wildlife I had seen. I couldn't quite believe I had completed a week of my Conservation already. Given we finished by 2:30-3:00pm every day I had made time to view the sunset at the War Memorial site which overlooks Fremantle, take a few trips to South Beach and just generally enjoy the area along with doing the bloody washing! For the coming weekend though I had organised to go to Rottnest Island and while there enjoy 'Rottofest' which is a Comedy and Music festival which happens once a year. It was fab. I got to the Island using the Rottnest Express Ferry which took about 25 minutes and given the festival had agreed to put
on later ones, I booked mine for 9:40pm which gave me a cool 12 hours to enjoy. On the way over I caught a glimpse of humpback Whales which were flapping their back fins about which was pretty cool. Once on Rottnest, I made my way to pick up my festival wristband and the info about the acts that were on. My ticket covered both the Music and Comedy events so I could pick and choose at ease. I decided to start with the compendium show that gave the main acts a 5 minute slot each. From there I decided to catch Dave Callun (Irish), Chris Wainwright (Perth), Eddie Ifft (U.S.A), Rebecca De Unamuno (Sydney) who I all enjoyed. The MC's were really amusing aswell. I even managed 2 hours of crisping up at Basin Bay which was stunning and a drink with Morena the Italian roommate who had scored herself a job on the Island the week before. The biggest shock was I actually found some Welsh people!! A small group from Swansea with their Work/Travel visa's and a couple from Wrexham which have residency. I also met another lovely couple from Ireland who I shared the crossing over
with and caught a show with them. All in all it had been a superb day full of laughter, wine and sunshine! 😊 The following day I had booked to take part in the Fremantle Prison Tunnel tours. For this I needed to be breathalysed as we would be decending 20m ladders and walking in tunnels aswell as manoeuvring small paddle boats through the flooded areas. It was so interesting, as this was how Fremantle had obtained it's drinking water for years. The tour included a quick walkaround the externals of the Prison with the history of each Building recanted to us has we passed. 'Ryan' our guide was fantastic. Very knowledgeable, passionate and looked good in all the equipment. 😉 For this we all needed hard hat, paper suits and harness! It was so worth it though!!! And I got a certificate! Monday was soon upon me and my second week of Conservation Experience was about to start. This week I finally got to do some planting to create a natural habitat along the bank of a reservoir at Bickley Brook. It was a beautiful location slightly further out in the sticks. Tuesday soon arrived and unfortunately weeding was
back on the cards, but at least it was at a new location this time. It was at Baigup Wetlands removing a variety of non native weeds. It was a laborious job but felt worthwhile in that we were helping in the fight against them. Afterwards I grabbed a coffee with one of my fellow workmates and it was interesting to discuss the changing history of the area. Wednesday took us to Canning River Park where the order of the day was to remove a critically invasive grass variety. Again a beautiful yet different location. That evening I enjoyed dinner and a tour of Fremantle with another of the guys from the conservation experience. It was great to finally taste the Barramundi fish washed down with a Malbec. The sunset that accompanied it was beautiful over Bather's Bay and it was a change from eating alone! A few too many Malbec's and being in the embarrassing position of them starting to clean up around me signifying it's time to go, is not classy but I got the hint! Although in my defense it was about 10pm!!! I passed another bar on the walk home so called in for a Cider.
Again it was empty apart from me and one other couple. I couldn't believe this is how life was over here. Dark by 6, Home by 8!!! I got back by 10:30 and felt like a real rebel! Given I had enjoyed a few drinks I made the logical decision, to not climb up onto my bunk bed and disturb my room mate who was a lovely lady from London so opted for the settee instead. 6am the following day I woke with a nasty headache. I couldn't think why! ☺ 2 Nurofen (the breakfast of Champions) and a cuppa brought me round just enough to get on the bus for another day of Weeding. Today we were working around the Canning River Regional Park area removing invasive species and helping to provide water for plantings that had been put in a fortnight ago and had no rain. It was a nice change and again a very pretty area as this too was a wetland. My final day arrived and it was a mix of emotions. I was greatful to be finally shot of weeding but was just starting to enjoy the routine and gaining colleagues. My final location was
beautiful located next to the water, back in the Sand dunes at Grant Marine Park - Regeneration Area and Frescia removal was the order of the day, to my disbelief. This goes back to removing non native species, I suppose. So all in all I was finishing on a high, great weather, great location and nice weeds with a certificate stating I had clocked up 70 hours! 😊 Everyone had been really welcoming and I had really enjoyed their company but it was time to make tracks to check out of the backpackers and head back to Perth. Before jumping on the train, I grabbed a coffee with Morena who was over on the mainland to food shop. Her job was going well on Rottnest and we agreed to keep in touch.
Perth 25th - 27th September 2015
Back in Perth to the place I had stayed previously I settled in and put the washing on. It was time to review details of my up coming trip starting on Sunday and get ready for my Western Australia Tour. I couldn't wait to meet the group and visit the areas listed. I had heard so many positives from the
locals on the Conservation Experience about them, I was really excited but first I had the startings of a chest infection to deal with. So it was to be a chilled weekend of sunbathing and a stroll around Kings Park to sweat it out of me!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.145s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0337s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Beth Cowdry
non-member comment
Hard Life!!
Well well well what can I say.... I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the alarms were going off ?? Trust you! You have actually made it look like you were working strenuously! I have to be honest I am a little disappointed that we didnt get to see a photos of you in your Mr Blobby trousers ?? The photos are fab. Another fantastic read. Keep up the good work ? Bx