Life in Nebo So Far

I'm exhausted, my bones ache and my new outback life consists of work, eat, sleep, repeat. But given all that, life here in Nebo isn't as bad as I prepared myself for.

My first working day started off with a definite bang. I woke up at 5:00 in the morning, started housekeeping work at 6:00 in the morning, and after 13 hours of making beds and cleaning bathrooms I finally finished my first day. Oh, and then I woke up at 5:00 am the next morning to do it all over again. This is probably the most grueling tough work I have ever done, but boy oh boy does the money make up for it. With hours like these, I will be working close to 60 hours a week, not spending a penny as all my food and accommodation is provided, and I will save up enough money for my upcoming trips to New Zealand AND Fiji with maybe even a little left over to bring home with me. Yes, the work is definitely worth it.

So where am I? What's it like? Well let me tell you! I am living in a camp of mobile homes set up like individual hotel rooms. Aside from the maybe 20 people on staff, the camp is home to Australian miners who live, what I think is, a strange life. They work a schedule where they are "on two weeks, off one week" or some other time frame involving being on and off. They all generally live in bigger cities, but when they are "on" they need a place to stay within close vicinity to the mine. So enter an accomodation camp like the one I'm working in; a home away from home for miners who are currently on shift. The miners are gross and sleezy and stare at me like they've never seen a female before in their life, but aside from the staring they leave me alone.

The work I have done so far is mainly housekeeping (you think miners are gross from afar , try cleaning up after them...ew!) and a little bit of work doing dishes in the kitchen. It's not TOO bad, but the heat and humidity definitely make it harder. So far it has been 80 - 90 degrees on average, and I'm told it going to get even hotter as summer rolls in! But on the very bright side, after only a few days here the manager informed me that their current receptionist is leaving and he's chosen me to take over that administrative position! This means more office work, less housekeeping and air conditioning! I wanted this admin position from the get go, so when I was offered the job without having to ask I was beyond excited. Once I get into doing primarily admin work these next eight weeks will fly by!

Surprisingly, the accommodation here is much nicer than I anticipated. I have my own room and bathroom, a wardrobe in which I can unpack out of my suitcase, a tv with cable, a mini fridge and a free gym that is a two second walk from my room, After living in hostels for the past few months this is definitely a nice change of scenery!All my meals are provided as well, which is a huge money saver. For breakfast and dinner I go to the mess hall which completely reminds me of the dining halls at university. Since all miners are gone during the day the mess hall is closed during lunch time, and so after breakfast each day there is a sandwich and salad bar in which I can pack a lunch to bring with me to work. With all these benefits, on top of what I'm being paid, it will be more than easy to spend next to nothing whilst I am here.

So while I may be living in the middle of nowhere, and the long hard hours turn me into an exhausted zombie at the end of the day, I am surprisingly not dreading the next eight weeks as much as I thought I would. Work keeps me busy enough to not realize how stranded from civilization I am, and the living situation is a very comfortable setting in which to retreat to at the end of the day. And when all is said and done, and I am lying on a beach in Fiji or swimming with dolphins in New Zealand, it will all be so so worth it!

Abby Goes To The Outback

It's amazing how an impending deadline can just creep up on you. One moment you feel like you have all the time in the world, and the next it's basically crunch time. This is exactly what happened to me with the expiration date on my Australian Working Holiday visa. I knew I would need to find work in Oz after my east coast trip if I wanted to be able to afford a trip to New Zealand, but as I was traveling the east coast it felt like I had all the time in the world to find a job. Now here I am, with nine weeks left on my visa, and heading to the outback to make some fast money.

When I left Surfers Paradise I assumed I'd find a job in Brisbane, hopefully two,  fairly quickly and have more than enough time to save up some money for more traveling as well as enjoy some time living the city life. But once I got to Brisbane I realized it would  take a little longer to find work than I anticipated, that I actually had really limited time until I had to leave the country, and even if I did find a job I'd really only make enough to finance my living costs in the city with hardly anything to put away for savings. I was financially stressed out and  beginning to worry I'd have to come home without being able to go to New Zealand, an option I really wasn't happy with. I came home from Australia the first time without feeling like I finished my trip and I really didn't want to make that mistake again.

So to solve my financial predicament I began to look at what they call "regional work," which is really just hard work out in tiny little towns in the outback. I knew it wasn't the ideal job (come on, I'd much rather be a city girl!), but I knew it was my only option if I wanted to keep traveling. So I decided to suck it up, go to the outback for 8 weeks, make a lot of money really fast and know that it was all an ends to a mean which would fund even more traveling.

As I write this post I am on a plane, heading to a tiny little town about two hours west of the coast. The town has a population of approximately 284 people (or it did in 2006), it is full of miners and truckers and is about the size of a clementine orange on google maps. Not really my kind of place, but again it's all for an end goal! I will be working in an accommodation village, which can house up to 600 people, basically serving miners and truckers stopping through the tiny town. I'll be doing anything from housekeeping to kitchen work to bar work to possibly admin work. Basically I'll be an all-rounder at a junction cafe. But on the bright side I will be working 45-60 hours a week, so hopefully I will be to tired from all the hard work to actually care that I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do.

So here goes. Abby, a city girl who prefers hustle and bustle, getting dressed up and being surrounded by heaps of people at any given time, is taking on the outback. It will be dead quiet, full of redneck Australian miners and cowboys and definitely the complete opposite of a busy city. It might be ugly at times, and probably a little bit dirty, but it's short term and it will be worth it when it's all over.

Stay tuned! This blog has taken a definite turn of direction, and hopefully my struggles (or maybe surprising outcome which turns out to be better than I expect) will make a good laugh for all of you back home. I sure hope the outback is ready for someone like me! 

Going Backwards and Moving Forward

Well I have yet again been slacking on the blogging. Partly because I was just having too much fun finishing my trip up the East Coast of Australia and partly because once said trip was finished I hit quite a wall. I've spent so much time collecting my thoughts, and figuring out my next plan of action, this blog has kind of gotten shoved aside. But I'm here, back now, and ready to report!

The last few bits of my East Coast trip were absolutely amazing. From taking a two day boat trip through the Whitsunday Islands and seeing the most amazing beach in the world, Whitehaven Beach, to finally getting to the top of the East Coast to Cairns, I had an absolute blast. I perfected my Australian tan, I found some amazing friends, and I made some memories that I will never forget.

But alas I am on a Working Holiday, and at some point the holiday part has to end and the working has to commence. For the entire duration of my East Coast trip, I always knew that when I was ready to leave a place, there was a pretty set path laid out for me and I always knew where to go next. But once I got to Cairns all of a sudden I had no idea what to do next. Should I work and finish out my visa in Australia? Should I go straight to New Zealand? I just didn't know! Unfortunately, and maybe fortunately since I am the most indecisive person in the world, my bank account decided for me that I had to find a job if I wanted to be able to fund my trip to New Zealand. But the next question was where in Australia should I go?!

Since I had such an amazing time in Surfers Paradise the first time around, and knew I could easily get my job at the hostel back, I decided the most sensible idea was to head back to Surfers. And so I did. I tried to prepare myself for a different experience than the first, but that was easier said than done. I arrived back to my old hostel to a not as friendly group of people, an overly controlling manager and way to much drama in just a weeks time than I really wanted to deal with. I am, after all, still on Holiday and even though I may need to work I still want to have a good time in the meantime! And on top of all that, there just weren't any jobs to be found in Surfers Paradise. Sometimes you can just tell that something isn't working out, and you just know it's not going to fall into place, and that's the exact feeling I got from Surfers Paradise this time around. So I decided to hell with it, I am going to go to Brisbane.

Brisbane is a big city so there will be a lot more job opportunities and it is a place which I spent very little time in during my travels so I can start somewhere fresh with no expectations. It was never a place that was on my radar, but it's only about two hours from Surfers and seems the most sensible place to go and try to sort work out. I have limited time left which I can work until my visa expires, and I need to make all the money I can before I head to New Zealand. So here you have it, a couple more days time and I will be on my way to Brissy!

This post is, in a nutshell, a very condensed version of what's been going on the past few weeks over here in the Land of Oz. It's been mostly good times, and some tough times, but I am getting through them and still so happy to be in Oz. Hopefully once I get to Brisbane, I can settle down with a job, and have even more exciting stories to tell! So until next time--which will hopefully be much sooner this time around!