I arrived on Horn Island on this Monday, and I start working at Wongai Hotel in Horn Island today.
This island is very remote, I do not have GSM mobile connection here. Right now I'm sharing a flat with 3 of my co-workers, and in the house we have a land-line phone. The number is 07-40903459. If you call, please just ask for Sen.
I don't have much time now, so I'll finish here.
Wish everyone a very wonderful new year. See you.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Destination - Horn Island
I'll leave Cairns for Horn Island for a work at a hotel there on next Monday. Horn Island is next to Thursday Island in Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea. There are many indeginous people living there.
You can find relevant information on the webpages through the hyperlinks above. It will be a special experience I hope. I think there have not been many Taiwanese people there.
It is now the beginning of the rain season there, but they say at this time of the year the place looks most lush and green.
The place I'm going to work at will be Wongai Hotel. Their address is 2 Wees Street, Horn Island, QLD. Their toll-free phone number is 1800804422. Hopefully I will work there until mid-April of next year, and then return to Cairns and take a tour to Whitsunday Islands before I leave Australia.
It is so remote, I'm afraid that I won't have mibile phone connection there. So maybe I can only keep in touch with my friends by email if there is internet there.
A tropical, remote island, that is my next destination.
You can find relevant information on the webpages through the hyperlinks above. It will be a special experience I hope. I think there have not been many Taiwanese people there.
It is now the beginning of the rain season there, but they say at this time of the year the place looks most lush and green.
The place I'm going to work at will be Wongai Hotel. Their address is 2 Wees Street, Horn Island, QLD. Their toll-free phone number is 1800804422. Hopefully I will work there until mid-April of next year, and then return to Cairns and take a tour to Whitsunday Islands before I leave Australia.
It is so remote, I'm afraid that I won't have mibile phone connection there. So maybe I can only keep in touch with my friends by email if there is internet there.
A tropical, remote island, that is my next destination.
Cairns, continued
I have been in Cairns for 5 days. Actually I like this place. The weather is not as hot as I thought before I came here. It could be hot around noon, but in the nighttime it's very comfortable. Although it should be rain season here, but so far it has rained only once last night.
This is a tourist's city, especially Japanese tourists. There on the streets are a lot of Japanese tourists. You can see Japanese signs everywhere, even in the Woolworths supermarket. When I went to find a job at a hotel, they asked me if I can speak Japanese; when I handed in my resume at the Grunt job agency, they asked if I can speak Japanese as well. There are 3 cities in Japan namely Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya with direct flights to Cairns, no wonder there are so many of them here.
This is also the first place in Australia I find there is a night market like that kind I found in Singapore. The scale is smaller that that of Singapore of course, but you can find souvenir shops, clothes and decoration shops as well as more than 10 food shops in the night market. There is a good thing about having dinner in the night market, everynight evening after 8:30 the 4 cafeterias offer meals originally priced at around AUD$12 at a great AUD$5. They will give you a plastic plate and you can put on as much food as you can. That is really a bargain. I tried twice with different cafeterias, and they were both not too bad.
Cairns city place is not very big, but it has a big shopping mall with more than 100 shops, a main street from the shopping mall to the esplanade where you can find a man-made lagoon to swim in, a lot of tour shops you can book tours to the Great Barrier Reef and rainforests, a lot of pubs, backpacker hostels, restaurants, souvenir shops, boutiques, and 2 Global Gossip internet places where you can use the internet for AUD$1 for the first hour, etc. Generally you won't soon get bored with this place.
I met 3 Taiwanese friends here. One of them I have known since in Darwin, she has left for Osaka yesterday, and will return to Taiwan next week. The other twon are a girl coming here just for holidays and has left for Brisbane; the other is a boy who's been in Australia for 2 months only but has been to many cities already, he has left for Mareeba, a twon about 60KM out of Cairns, for work. I think there are not many Taiwanese people here, I'm also leaving soon, but I'll return months later.
This is a tourist's city, especially Japanese tourists. There on the streets are a lot of Japanese tourists. You can see Japanese signs everywhere, even in the Woolworths supermarket. When I went to find a job at a hotel, they asked me if I can speak Japanese; when I handed in my resume at the Grunt job agency, they asked if I can speak Japanese as well. There are 3 cities in Japan namely Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya with direct flights to Cairns, no wonder there are so many of them here.
This is also the first place in Australia I find there is a night market like that kind I found in Singapore. The scale is smaller that that of Singapore of course, but you can find souvenir shops, clothes and decoration shops as well as more than 10 food shops in the night market. There is a good thing about having dinner in the night market, everynight evening after 8:30 the 4 cafeterias offer meals originally priced at around AUD$12 at a great AUD$5. They will give you a plastic plate and you can put on as much food as you can. That is really a bargain. I tried twice with different cafeterias, and they were both not too bad.
Cairns city place is not very big, but it has a big shopping mall with more than 100 shops, a main street from the shopping mall to the esplanade where you can find a man-made lagoon to swim in, a lot of tour shops you can book tours to the Great Barrier Reef and rainforests, a lot of pubs, backpacker hostels, restaurants, souvenir shops, boutiques, and 2 Global Gossip internet places where you can use the internet for AUD$1 for the first hour, etc. Generally you won't soon get bored with this place.
I met 3 Taiwanese friends here. One of them I have known since in Darwin, she has left for Osaka yesterday, and will return to Taiwan next week. The other twon are a girl coming here just for holidays and has left for Brisbane; the other is a boy who's been in Australia for 2 months only but has been to many cities already, he has left for Mareeba, a twon about 60KM out of Cairns, for work. I think there are not many Taiwanese people here, I'm also leaving soon, but I'll return months later.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Cairns
I left Carnarvon yesterday, took a ride of the uncomfortable greyhound for 13 hours back to Perth, then take the flight at 11:15PM from Perth to Cairns, and after about 5 hours I arrived in this tropical tourist city.
Cairns is so popular that in the high summer now there are still a lot of tourists and backpackers here, and I was kind of surprised when I was looking for a hostel to stay here I found that there are almost 30 backpacker hostels in such a city with only 100,000 of population. This place is HOT and rowdy. The streets here look even more crowded than Perth.
Later I'm going to get more familiar with this place for I'll say here until mid-April, and later on will write more abouth this place. I'm now too tired and can not think of what I could write...
Cairns is so popular that in the high summer now there are still a lot of tourists and backpackers here, and I was kind of surprised when I was looking for a hostel to stay here I found that there are almost 30 backpacker hostels in such a city with only 100,000 of population. This place is HOT and rowdy. The streets here look even more crowded than Perth.
Later I'm going to get more familiar with this place for I'll say here until mid-April, and later on will write more abouth this place. I'm now too tired and can not think of what I could write...
Friday, November 16, 2007
Carnarvon
We are now staying at Port Hotel in Carnarvon. We will begin grape picking from next Monday. I need to commit 3 months of seasonal work to apply for a second WHV.
There are several works to do in this agricultural center in north WA, but it's easier to get one through the hostels here. There are two backpacker hostels here. People say that Port Hotel is better because it has more job offers.
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I left Carnarvon on 16 December. Totally I stayed about 6 weeks there. In the first week I had no work to do. My first work there was picking table grapes, it lasted for only one day, and on the next day I changed to work at a vegs and fruits packing shed. The pay was only 15.30 before tax, and my tax rate was over 20%. After working there for 5 weeks I could save up less than $1000 after spending the hostel rents and living costs. My work in the packing shed was mainly stacking the packed rockmelons, each of the carton could weigh around 20KG, and sometimes I had to stack more than 600 cartons in one day. The work was tough, but not lucrative, and that's why I decided to leave.
Other than working, the only things you can do in Carnarvon is sometimes you can rent a car to go to Coral Bay, Exmouth or Monkey Mia. Unfortunately I didn't have enough money to do that, but I don't think that's a loss because now I think everywhere in Australia looks similar, and I'll not apply for the second visa for the reason that now I reckon one year is enough.
There are several works to do in this agricultural center in north WA, but it's easier to get one through the hostels here. There are two backpacker hostels here. People say that Port Hotel is better because it has more job offers.
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I left Carnarvon on 16 December. Totally I stayed about 6 weeks there. In the first week I had no work to do. My first work there was picking table grapes, it lasted for only one day, and on the next day I changed to work at a vegs and fruits packing shed. The pay was only 15.30 before tax, and my tax rate was over 20%. After working there for 5 weeks I could save up less than $1000 after spending the hostel rents and living costs. My work in the packing shed was mainly stacking the packed rockmelons, each of the carton could weigh around 20KG, and sometimes I had to stack more than 600 cartons in one day. The work was tough, but not lucrative, and that's why I decided to leave.
Other than working, the only things you can do in Carnarvon is sometimes you can rent a car to go to Coral Bay, Exmouth or Monkey Mia. Unfortunately I didn't have enough money to do that, but I don't think that's a loss because now I think everywhere in Australia looks similar, and I'll not apply for the second visa for the reason that now I reckon one year is enough.
Geraldton
After our 2-night stay in Perth at the extremely rowdy and uncomfortable Globe Backpackers, we, me and the German girl Claudia, went to Geraldton and stayed for one week at Foreshore Backpackers.
At first we went to Geraldton because of that after calling the crayfish factory, they told us to go there and hand in application forms directly to the factory. But we felt that we were cheated by them, when we went to the factory, they instead told us they needed no new workers, and maybe we could go back there everyday, after one or two weeks, to ask if they need some, and maybe some day they will. The foreman of the factory seemed very arrogant and ignorant indeed, and we hated him. Unfortunately there is only one crayfish company left in Geraldton, because it had bought all the other ones. Hence, we had no any other chance to get a seasonal work there.
We spent the rest of the week doing nothing, but stayed at the hostel eating, watching TV and sleeping. The weather in Geraldton in that period of time was not too bad, it's been very hot at 39C for only one day during our stay. Normally it's very sunny but cool with comfy breezes day and night. I don't really like the hostel we stayed, but it's better than the other one beside the information center.
In the room I stayed there were some disgusting bedbugs, I got bit many times, and hell the bites itched a lot, and also swelled a lot. I spent almost 30 dollars bought some medicine to use externally and internally as well. Most of the medicine did not work well, the only thing useful is 100% tea tree oil. The oil is expensive, 10ml for about 5 dollars, but it reduces the itch well, and soothe the swells.
Geraldton has severay beaches. The hostel I stayed is just next to a beach, you can walk through the back door to get to the beach behind. The most beautiful one I think is Tarcoolar beach out of the town center, it's long and there are not many people there, and it's a good place to view the sunset during summer, in winter the sunset can be seen on the beach behind our backpackers.
There was also one day, I rent a car with Claudia to go to Kalbarri National Park which is more than 200KM in the north. We spent around 200 dollars in total for the rental and fuel. It's a big and beautiful park, the seashre is amazing. The most famous spot in the park is the Nature's Window which is a hole between layers of rock, and you can look through it to see the scenery behind. The bad part about the park is that there are a hugh amount of flys everywhere, and the roads lead to Nature's Window and some other lookouts are like rubbish. Nevertheless it is good that we went there.
At first we went to Geraldton because of that after calling the crayfish factory, they told us to go there and hand in application forms directly to the factory. But we felt that we were cheated by them, when we went to the factory, they instead told us they needed no new workers, and maybe we could go back there everyday, after one or two weeks, to ask if they need some, and maybe some day they will. The foreman of the factory seemed very arrogant and ignorant indeed, and we hated him. Unfortunately there is only one crayfish company left in Geraldton, because it had bought all the other ones. Hence, we had no any other chance to get a seasonal work there.
We spent the rest of the week doing nothing, but stayed at the hostel eating, watching TV and sleeping. The weather in Geraldton in that period of time was not too bad, it's been very hot at 39C for only one day during our stay. Normally it's very sunny but cool with comfy breezes day and night. I don't really like the hostel we stayed, but it's better than the other one beside the information center.
In the room I stayed there were some disgusting bedbugs, I got bit many times, and hell the bites itched a lot, and also swelled a lot. I spent almost 30 dollars bought some medicine to use externally and internally as well. Most of the medicine did not work well, the only thing useful is 100% tea tree oil. The oil is expensive, 10ml for about 5 dollars, but it reduces the itch well, and soothe the swells.
Geraldton has severay beaches. The hostel I stayed is just next to a beach, you can walk through the back door to get to the beach behind. The most beautiful one I think is Tarcoolar beach out of the town center, it's long and there are not many people there, and it's a good place to view the sunset during summer, in winter the sunset can be seen on the beach behind our backpackers.
There was also one day, I rent a car with Claudia to go to Kalbarri National Park which is more than 200KM in the north. We spent around 200 dollars in total for the rental and fuel. It's a big and beautiful park, the seashre is amazing. The most famous spot in the park is the Nature's Window which is a hole between layers of rock, and you can look through it to see the scenery behind. The bad part about the park is that there are a hugh amount of flys everywhere, and the roads lead to Nature's Window and some other lookouts are like rubbish. Nevertheless it is good that we went there.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Leaving Farm
After 2 weeks of stay, I'm leaving this farm with a German girl tomorrow. Will be going back to Perth, stay there for 2 nights, and then go to Geraldton on next Tuesday.
The reason we're leaving is that strawberry picking is too tough, and the cherry season is still about 3 weeks away. When picking the berries, we have to keep kneeing or bending down, and then our knees and back hurt a lot after the work. Also the weather is another cause of our leaving, this is really a beautiful place, but the weather is terrible, it almost rains everyday, the sky is always gray and cloudy, and most of the time it's also cold, sometimes even freezing. We're long for warm and shiny days, and therefore we decide to travel north.
After looking for on the Internet, we found that there might be some work at crayfish factories in Geraldton. We contacted them several times by email, but got no reply. We then called them, and they told us to go to Geraldton and hand in the application forms directly to the factory. We're not sure if we can really get a work there, but anyway we're trying, and we really have enough of working on the farm.
We have learned that packing is always better than picking, and pay by hour is far more superior than by contract. We know there are certain harvest works with pay higher by contract, but anyway we hate picking.
The reason we're leaving is that strawberry picking is too tough, and the cherry season is still about 3 weeks away. When picking the berries, we have to keep kneeing or bending down, and then our knees and back hurt a lot after the work. Also the weather is another cause of our leaving, this is really a beautiful place, but the weather is terrible, it almost rains everyday, the sky is always gray and cloudy, and most of the time it's also cold, sometimes even freezing. We're long for warm and shiny days, and therefore we decide to travel north.
After looking for on the Internet, we found that there might be some work at crayfish factories in Geraldton. We contacted them several times by email, but got no reply. We then called them, and they told us to go to Geraldton and hand in the application forms directly to the factory. We're not sure if we can really get a work there, but anyway we're trying, and we really have enough of working on the farm.
We have learned that packing is always better than picking, and pay by hour is far more superior than by contract. We know there are certain harvest works with pay higher by contract, but anyway we hate picking.
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