A hunting adventure....job hunting that is.

I am in a country where it is easier to find an animal smaller than a 50 pence piece that will kill you than it is to find a job. Maybe I should get a job hunting down dangerous wildlife...

When I'm faced with having to find a job I tend to give up looking at sensible options and design wild fanciful jobs for myself. I start by looking at the details for the job "Restaurant floor team members needed. Must be experienced and have....Zzzzzzzz" Boring. How about, think I, getting someone to pay me to do loads of interesting things and do amazing stuff....OR how about finding someone to pay me to write about having loads of great adventures. You sense the pattern of my train of thought. I basically want someone to pay for me to be kept in my lady of leisure state. It ain't going to happen, so I always have to refocus my attention. Go on then, tell me about this restaurant....

Victoria x

A little pot of Gold

There's always something guaranteed to make a woman smile. The promise of Gold.
We woke up to a particularly sunny day (by my Brit standards) and decided to take a drive for an hour or two to the city of Ballarat, and more specifically, Sovereign Hill. It's the site of an old gold mining town from wayyy back in Australian history....so 1850. About last week by an English timeline seeing as our school History lessons were packed with gossip from the Vikings and Henry VIII and his plethora of Wives from many hundreds of years ago. But this is basically as far back as you can go in this lovely land so exciting stuff, clearly.

It was all decked out in olden style shops and houses, all selling real stuff like sweets freshly made, or gold jewellery or candles, made via demonstrations and on site. Sort of a Museum and the Gift Shop all rolled into one. We panned for Gold in the little stream, at first having a laugh and joking around with all the excited kiddies.... until we realised we really wanted some Gold and got very serious and methodical about it. I was sifting about in the rocks and sand with gay abandon, glad I hadn't decided to refresh my manicure the night before. Our perseverance paid off however and I found 2 separate flecks of gold (probably only worth about $10) and popped it in a special pot they had handy for just such occurrences.

After carousing around some mine shafts and learning about a mining tragedy (I felt like I was on a school trip, it was brilliant!) we headed off to get to something to eat before the infamous Sound and Light show. A Sound and Light show, for the unenlightened amongst you (no pun intended) is exactly what it says on the tin. It's basically a play with no actors. We walked around the village at night, with smokey effects and booming voices coming from speakers telling a story. Then we got a bus up the hill to sit in an inside auditorium, one wall of which moved to one side so we could see outside to the "stage". It was really amazing, the story being of a digger uprising and battles and drunken people setting a pub on fire. Heart warming stuff.

We returned home late, full of freshly made hard boiled sweets and with my Gold safely tucked away in my pocket.

 Australia is sooo backwards....

 A bar of Gold we saw poured, worth over $140,000. I ran but was apprehended by the man in the amazing moustache.

Victoria x

A Brit goes to Camp....

Easter Weekend just wouldn't be the same without some good old fashioned family time. So for Easter we went away to Apollo Bay to camp, with family. Sadly, not my family. Happily, the very nice family of our housemate, so all was not lost. 

It entailed the general gadabouting you can expect from an Australian camp (not to be confused with an Austrian camp.....VERY different things) - trips to the beach, surfing, staying up late drinking and playing incomprehensible card games, sand between the toes for almost 72 hours... 

Easter Sunday itself consisted of an 8am wake-up call followed by puzzles, games and an Easter egg hunt in some bushes. All very healthy, good for the soul kind of nonsense....except I was massively hungover (having stayed up late drinking and playing incomprehensible... we've discussed this) and nearly stole as many Easter eggs as I could carry in order to scoff, and quash the rising nausea in my tum. I'd devoured my choccy bunny before breakfast. 

The rest of the day we spent exploring nearby forests and the beach, and after seeing a sign for the Shell Museum we did a U-turn at 50kays in order to see what it was all about. Turns out, it was a lot of shells. Good shells, well worth the 5 dollars that I was happy to pay after smearing the glass cases with my fingers seeing as I'd had an ice lolly moments before... 

(Our new apartment. The tree house. Har har...)

So, camp - extremely Australian, and next time I shall be more prepared. Take two duvets so we're not forced to share a creaky bunk. Pack more socks than I think I will need. In fact I'll take every pair of socks I own. Prepare to look less than my best and take a luke-warm shower with hoards of people waiting for me to soap up, rinse off and get out. 

Oh, and I saw a bazillion koala bears. Absolutely worth any amount of soggy socks and cold showers...

Victoria x

Day at the Zoo!

One of the very best places I've visited so far.... The Zoo! I've never been to a Zoo before, the closest I've got was a farm and there's no cheetahs in those things. We drove for an hour to Werribee, about halfway between Geelong and Melbourne, and had the most sunshiney weather to wander round and see some brilliant creatures.

There were Vervet Monkeys (not Velvet monkeys as I'd originally thought...)

....Cheetahs (we were really lucky to see one this close, we happened to walk past at feeding time but they usually take the meat and run off with it to eat in private. We were literally feet away from all the bone-crunching action...)












....Meercats (who are very cheeky and love to pose)

..... Hippopotamuses (who look cute but just have the most amazing power behind them when you see them up close. You wouldn't want one of these things charging at you....)

......Little beasties like crocs and snakes.....

......Lions (sleeping instead of prowling)

....Emus (that were taller than me - if I felt threatened I had to stand on tiptoes and hold my hand in the air so I showed I was superior. Thankfully that wasn't needed, they seemed completely happy to wander around us)....

....And of course, kangaroos. Seeing one of these so close was like a mythical legend had come to life. I'd heard about them and seen pictures all my life but to really see a proper kangaroo, one of the national and stereotypical symbols of Australia was insane!

We missed the Safari bus trip round the reserve to see zebras and things but will definitely be going again so it's something to look forward too! Also had the typical tourist-type photo taken whilst I was there...

Victoria x

Uneven ground. Rapid water. Falling trees. Snakes.

Well this week we went Bush Walking! After driving along the Great Ocean Road for an hour we arrived at Lorne, the location of a lovely beach, the start of the Bush Walk and the very beautiful Erksine Falls, a 30foot waterfall. There was a sign that advised only experienced bush walkers pass that point but we hardly saw it as we set off and rambled on for a few hours deeper into the Bush, where there was no path except for ones you made yourself - this meant crossing fast-flowing rivers and clambering over fallen trees to keep on going. Was immensely fun and a little bit scary at times....

                                                                                                                                                               

The beach at Lorne was perfect and we reverted to childhood, getting down on our hands and knees to make a big sandcastle. Children looked on enviously as two adults carved out a moat and added 4 turrets to our sandy masterpiece. Small but evident satisfaction was gotten from the waves that filled the moat but failed to crumble the foundations of the castle. It was a well spent half an hour. 

We also decided to have a poke about in the rock pools further on down the beach. A few crabs made good their escape as I tried to catch one but I eventually cornered one of the littler beasts and made it pose for a photo. It didn't like it that much, was a bit snappy with me (Sorry, bad joke...). Some red and black sea anemones tried to close up around my finger as I gave them a gentle prod and some mini-shrimp things tickled my feet as I tip-toed through the pools - I really was just going round accidentally annoying the wildlife.

Victoria x

The beautiful, the rare and my very first duck-billed platypus.....

Sadly not the real thing, and apparently this is as close as I'm ever going to get to one of these gorgeous creatures. But I'm secretly determined to prove all Australians wrong (I am a woman and British, ergo I must be right at all times) and catch a glimpse of one of them when the chances are apparently very, very small.....unless I camp by the right river day in day out. Well if that's what it takes.....

Victoria x