25/02/13

A cool, foggy morning follows a few days of warm sun, the height of which was yesterday's 33.c. A temperature which didn't aid my mild hangover. It's been 5 days since I uploaded my last blog and I haven't written a single thing since, this isn't because nothing has happened, more laziness on my part. Highlights include: Cooking a proper roast dinner with roast spuds, cabbage, veg and the best gravy I have ever made! A hen party which came to the cheesery, Apo and Axel left for a 7 day hike on the overland track, oh and I got quite drunk on Saturday night and think I was the only one. Which is why I spent yesterday lying on the sofa, watching spartacus and looking up helpxes for Cambodia. Found a lovely little resort that are after a barman, that would be fantastic.

Nothing over the last few days has compared to the food I just cooked. Completely experimenting, I made melt in the middle cheese and bacon burgers with pumpkin and potato hash browns. The burger patty was made from chopped up bacon, mince meat and egg to bind the lot, put with a chunk of cheese in the centre so it melts and seeps out when you bite into it.

26/02/13

HAPPY DAYS! I got my tax refund, which means I won't have to beg on the streets of Thailand begging for food! Seriously though, it means that I will be able to live and afford things in Asia and actually have some left for Germany! I had another culinary moment of brilliance tonight too, we got given some chocolate cupcakes as a thank you from Mirriam so I put them in the microwave for a couple of seconds and mixed up a cocoa powder, water, sugar and cream combo to make this luxurious chocolate sauce which was truly glorious.

27/02/13

What a crazy organising day! My sister sent me my christmas/birthday present which is a scuba dive in Port Phillip bay in Melbourne, so I booked that, I used part of my tax refund to book my Red Centre Tour and, probably the biggest advancement is the Great Ocean Road (Referred to as 'GOR' herein). I'll fill you in a bit here; Ben, who I met during my Christmas and New Year stay in Sydney, also wanted to do the GOR, so we agreed after I've done Tassie and he's worked a bit in Sydney, we'll meet up and do it. So a few weeks back I started organising it and thought it would be good to get a few randoms involved, you know, meet new people, reduce the cost of the hire car, that sort of thing. I started scouting around and found quite a few people wanting to do it, however, a lot of the dates didn't match up, so I replied to a few and hoped for the best. Almost 2 weeks passed and I heard nothing from any of the people I'd replied to. Fair enough. So I put up my own advert on Gumtree. Then it started. I received a reply from a German girl yesterday evening, then another German girl last night. 2 Germans, ideal! We can go together as a 4, an even number, nobody will be left out and I can practice my German! Perfect, I thought, just got to organise it! Until... Until I got a response from MJ, one of three Canadian girls travelling together who posted an advert which I responded to. Now, this is a predicament. Let's look at the facts; In the German corner we have an even number, a chance to practice German and the forming of a completely new group which helps with getting to know eachother, but in the Canadian corner we have 3 attractive self acclaimed 'super fun' girls who will be easier to organise because they're all part of one group and it will be cheaper because there will be 5 of us. I have in my head my mother telling me German and my Father telling me Canadian. We'll just have to see how this one pans out...

01/03/13

I went to write '29/02/13' before realising it is in fact March! Time is surely flying, and now, with just 215 hours until my flight, I look forward to finishing. Yesterday was probably the worst day in terms of s***ty work I had to do, I mean the morning was okay, I was editing the website again, and there is still quite a bit I can do on it, but after lunch I got dragged into the factory to pack curd into bags and vacuum pack them, which wasn't too bad until I had to do all the washing up, so much curd. Then the pinot paste, I've mentioned the pinot paste before, the sticky, sloppy condiment which needs to be packed into small tubs and labelled. This took us right until 5, and then, again, we had to clean up. 5:45 we got out, could've done without that yesterday. I started the day in a hoody with the hood up, in a kind of hangover state, just wanting to veg on the couch all day and ended it vegging on the couch and falling asleep watching the TV with the housemates. But today is a different day! A day which will be filled with... packing chutney I think. It certainly won't be an easy day as Ciara and Tom have had their days off pushed back because of the stuff that needs to be done today.

02/03/13

Today was exactly what I wanted. I may have indulged with Ciara, Tom and a box of our friendly drink 'Goon'. This lead to me feeling not too chipper this morning. Luckily it was only Nicole and Miriam in charge today and I managed to score a day editing the website which is almost done. The dairy sheep website isn't looking too good though, so I might need to try to score some more days working on that this week. I had two disruptions; one was getting the rams from a paddock up to the shed with Miriam, that wasn't too bad, but they are gurt beasts and took a bit of convincing at times. The other was the milking. Oh god, the milking. It wasn't what my hangover ordered, but feeding the lambs after made up for it and boy are they getting big! After work, I hopped on my bike and rode to Ann's to return it. I figured I won't really be needing it this week and then I'm gone! Only 7 days left! When I got to Ann's, in true fashion, she offered me a beer. I know what you're thinking 'But you couldn't drink it because of the hangover', please. That was a beautiful, cold, crisp beer. Perfect. Tomorrow is my last day off, so I think I'll go into Hobart, skype with a couple of people and see if I need anything for this last week!

03/03/13

What. A. Day! My last day off (or so I thought) I'll get to that later... So yeh, my 'last day off' and I decided to spend it going into Hobart to skype with the parents this morning. On my way in, when I was stood, with my thumb out, I heard a very computerised 'Hello', a bit confused, I wasn't sure if it was someone messing about or a parrot, turns out it was variety of parrot in the trees. Weird. I had nothing to do in Hobart other than skype, so I spent the rest of the time just chilling and walking about. I found out that the main street; Elizabeth Street, isnt the only shopping place, I found the cat and fiddle mall, and the central mall. But it's unfortunate I found these on a Sunday! Nothing was open. So I took a casual hitch home. It was very hot so I stopped and watched part of a local cricket game. Very Australian. I got back to the loft around 3ish and decided to cool off and go to the beach. This was my favourite part of the day; going for a swim, lying on the beach, by myself, reading and playing my ukulele.

05/03/13

I just realised I didn't explain about the 'last day off', well, when I returned from my day off, the rosta had been changed. This gave me Tuesday and Wednesday off! Amazing! I only had to work Monday, Thursday and Friday! That was until today, Tuesday. It's Axel's birthday, so because I'm a fatty at heart and I don't want to miss out on cake, I chucked some clothes on and went down for coffee. This was probably a mistake, as I was asked to do something, I gladly replied it was, in fact, my day off. I trotted off back upstairs and set up Rosetta Stone, and prepared for a relaxing day off full of cleaning, organising my stuff ready to pack, and learning German. This was not to be, when Ryan entered the loft, Rosta in hand. The first rosta was the correct one. Monday - Friday this week with Saturday, still counting towards my Visa, as my day off. Anyway, I was pretty annoyed, music blasting into my ears, just working in a depressingly sticky state, I hate being at work without having showered. My lunch break consisted of the shower, and I was instantly in a better mood. Chocolate helped.

08/03/13

The last day for me is always one of the best. I'm just in a happier mood, knowing that I'm moving on. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Regardless, it's change. And in the words of Rafikki; Change is good. The last few days I've just been adding finishing touches to the website and making sure everything is in order for maintaining it after I leave.

Suddenly; that all went to s*** as I had to go and do the milking. As was with my first day, everything went wrong. The girls didn't fit in, I got pissed on, shat on and it took forever. Regardless, the day ended well with a few drinks and a meal with the housemates. I have tomorrow off and the day will be spent packing and organising a few things I'll be doing in Melbourne next week! I can't wait.

09/03/13

I am now sat in the airport after getting a lift from Ciara and Tom and saying goodbye I walked around the terminal to see what facilities I have. Found an area near arrivals, chair next to a power socket, opposite toilets, next to a vending machine with a nice warm draft from the heating! Oh, and I didn't mention free wifi! This will be my spot for the next 9 hours. Or so I thought. The airport police just came and spoke to me, it does in fact close at 10pm, so from then I'll be kicked out. This will leave me a choice; sit outside the airport like a hobo, or walk to the hotel/tourist park and pay about $130 for a bed. I'll go for option A thanks! He did say I'm okay to sit outside the terminal, so it's all good! This is just waiting time, I may still be able to access the wifi outside and he said there are others who will be doing the same thing, so maybe I'll use the 3 beers in my bag to make some friends.This will be the end of Tasmania and consequently the end of this blog entry, a rather fitting end and all rounding up quite nicely. This summary of Tasmania will seem fabricated, but I've really enjoyed my time here, the experience, the people, and of course, the lambs. There have been ups and downs, as always with my experience travelling. And although my travelling of Tasmania has been limited, I feel like I've actually experienced the, albeit slightly odd, lifestyle of the locals, hitchhiking almost on a weekly basis and talking to them about Tasmania and whatever interested them. I revisited a poster I saw once; "If you're 22, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel- as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people LIVE and EAT and COOK. Learn from them- wherever you go." This has been especially true over the last 9 weeks. Tasmania, thank you for being weird, you've made my time here very interesting.

(I didn't mention it in the blog, but I did actually see 2 tasmanian devils!)