STREWTH!!! It's Luke updating now...Liz is washing her hair! Joking I am, she's sat next to me! She says Hi!

We've got the next 6 weeks sorted! We went in to a travel shop today as we saw an advert outside for jobs, and we were told by a woman that somebody who owns a backpackers hostel in the city centre is looking for a couple to work there voluntarily for free accomodation,meals and other perks such as bbq and pizza events for free. We went along to speak to her and she's given it to us. We get a double room for ourselves too.
We start on friday, it's 15 hours a week, we work for three days and then have 4 off...it's good because we won't be spending money on accomodation or food and we get to stay here for a bit to save a bit of money. After that we're going to head south and maybe go and stay with Liz's friend Hannah in Melbourne and get a job there! :-D She leaves in 12 weeks to go to South America, so would be nice to stay with her and meet her, also for liz to see her because she's been away over 2 years already....Once we go down the south we can maybe go to other places such as Victoria and New South Wales...so much to see! But for the time being we're glued to Cairns!
We can also look for paid work, which a lot of the stuff is on a casual basis for a bit of extra cash! So we'll see what we can find there.
Basically me and liz will be running the hostel reception area and events...making sure the residents are happy and going to the events they put on! The fact we can speak english helps!
Liz has seen something she'd love to do...when we maybe get some money built up...there's a course you can do where you can learn to sail a ship around the Whitsunday islands...which is about $200 ...could do it now but want to build up extra cash first! I want to do a skydive and swim with sharks, but it's fairly expensive...all around $200...so once that money is built up! ;-)
We've been getting to know the city centre, and it has a population of 150,000 which is pretty much the same as Newport...the difference is you wouldn't see people getting up at around 6.30am to go jogging along the Esplanade...everything seems to be more relaxed and upbeat over here! It's hard to sleep in over here mind, it seems to get light really early and you tend to naturally wake up around that time anyway!
It's hard to know when to phone home now with it being 10 hours ahead here...it never seems to be the right time! We'll try to call home on the weekend!

Everyone told us before we came that Australia is more expensive, it is on par with the UK and can be expensive...but we've found ways to make it cheap! You go to bars and restaurants to eat...you pay higher prices...you go to Supermarkets and buy stuff to eat, you pay less! Pretty much like back home. There are a lot of places that do deals aswell, and happy hours where you pay 7 dollars for a jug of cider or beer which is about a fiver...and you get 2 to 3 pints out of it so it's worth it!
The next 6 weeks though we're going to try and spend as little as possible because we have accomodation and food sorted, and we're going to then maybe move on to Melbourne after that to find work!
We checked flights to Melbourne and they are only about 80 pound, $120. Considering it takes 4 days by car to get to Melbourne thats pretty good!
We've also seen a bus pass you can get where you get a 6 month pass for about $330, this is a hop on-hop off all around the east coast...if and when you want. At the moment we wouldn't get the use out of that because we'll be doing this for 6 weeks, but might do it after we've been to Melbourne and worked a bit, as a way of seeing Australia!
Fair play, this country is SO big! Did you know the whole of Europe can fit into it with room left? France can fit into it 12 times?
I don't think we'll be able to see it ALL...but we're gonna have a bloody good go, mate!! ;-)
We may actually stay the whole year as opposed to our 6 months planned here, to make use of our visa, it's just a thought at the moment... but it seems logical...when you get this visa for a year, I think wasting 6 months might be a bit of a schoolboy error when this country has so much to offer and see!
Will update again soon...just realised there's a free internet service in these travel places that sell all sorts of "learn to surf" , "Skydive" and "see the reef" deals! I can't believe we paid $3 last night at our hostel!!!!! RIP OFF.

xxx