full circle

So, back in Sydney. Back in Manly. The sun is shining and everything is familiar and comnforting and beautiful.

Back at Manly backpackers - a new lick of paint, a few things moved around but still the same old place. Music cranked up on weekend days. Lively, lovely people. Full of Poms and some of the old crew - Paul and Michelle, Jimbo and Ash, Russ, Lindon and Tall Guy...

The bus journey was hell - 14 hours long overnight and very little sleep but good company in the form of a Scotsman I met on the Nimbin trip and an Irish girl. We drove in from the north, down the freeway until there it was - the harbour stretching out infront of us. Small boats bobbing along, ferries chugging back and forth, Tthe Opera House winking away in the sunshine. The bridge stood proudly over it all and I felt full of emotion and fondness and awe. It felt like a triumphant return.

Back on the ferry to Manly - that trip I did everyday with Danielle and we took together last February as we headed south for a new adventure. How much had happened since. How many things I have seen and how much distance I have covered, these were turning over in my mind as I came 'home'.

Because Manly is just a beautiful place - a stunning beach, lovely wharf, great shops and trendy cafes, average but fun nightlife and a real community feel. There was the Honolulu Grill where Steven took me for lunch on the day I arrived and there were the volleyball nets where we used to sit and sunbathe at the weekends. In the distance is Shelley Beach - host to many, many barbecues - not least that on Christmas Day with Danielle and her family and our close friends.

If this post is self-indulgent - screw it. I've had an amazing time in New Zealand. I've seen penguins and dugongs, watched whales breach in two different oceans, swam with whalesharks and seen countless kangeroos, emus, kookaburras, snakes, spiders and lorikeets.

I've eaten bushtucker and learned about aboriginal art, life, culture. I've climbed to the top of an amazing waterfall (Jim Jim) and slept in a swag in the outback.

I've flown over the desert and barrier reef, and helicoptered over the amazing Bungle Bungles. I've flown a plane and ridden a chopper in 1770. I've dived one of the world's best wreck dives (SS Yongala) and scuba-ed on the Great Barrier Reef.

I've tasted amazing wines at Margaret River and average ones at Hunter Valley. I've cooked snags on a stone in a campfire in the Blue Mountains and worked in the rat race at Darling Harbour.

I've waited tables, poured pints, made beds, worked in a strip club, pandered to doctors and production managed magazines for a massive company.

I've made lifelong friends and met people from all over.

And now it is over.

Almost.

This weekend I've met up with Steve again, drank red wine with him,smoked a shisha with him and joined him and John for a 4.5km run at 7am along the soft sands at Manly followed by breakfast at the Honolulu grill.

I don't ever want to leave. But I really do. I have four weeks in New Zealand to come and then home to see all my family and friends for Christmas. It's not such a bad life...

tiredness...

Ever felt so tired the world was spinning too fast? Man. I had forgotten what it was like to work a full week.

And there I go jumping in the deep end with my first full week of work, and then to round it off, working 9pm til 4am in a bar on Friday and Saturday nights...

No rest for the wicked eh. But of a very different sort to my usual kind. So no doubt this blog will make no sense at all. Though some may that's no change from normal.

My strong views on Perth have brought forth some amused and amusing comments and I've tried to see more good in the city since my last blog. I saw at least two people with funky hair cuts on their way to work, and only 93% of people in cheap shoes.

Work at MLCOA, the medical-legal company I do admin and reception for, has been getting steadily better as I get the hang of the intracies of photocopying and taking messages... but seriously, I am more in the swing of it now and enjoying my bus rides to and from work, listening to BBC podcasts and sniggering away as the world-weary of Perth sit in their grey splendour looking at me like I'm a nut job with good legs and nice shoes.

During my last few days of freedom before THE JOBS, Caroline and I did some fun things that made me see Perth's prettier side - we sat by Swan River and ate 10 cents bags of marsmallows and drank coffee at London Court - a faux-medieval lane in the CBD.

We met up with my roommate Lisa and her lift to Broome Steve to suss him out, and the four of us climbed up to King's Park. It was stunning up there - a wonderful view back towards the city.





It really is Perth's prettiest side.

This week has been an adjustment to working, with dinner being cooked for us by wonderful friends, a French film with Tanu and two of her buddies and sleeping a lot.

Last night was my first shift at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow - a hard night after a 6.45am start. I got in at 5.30am this morning and slept for a few hours - hence the inane or insaneness of this blog. Few more hours kip I think before I do it all again tonight...

Sadly it means I miss out on the drinking and dancing. But that's probably not a bad thing, eh dad?!

Lazy days in Perth

Perth is an interesting city. It has a different vibe to Melbourne and Sydney. The clubbing and bar scene relies heavily on local bands covering the hits which are interspersed with dance music or chart stuff.

It's an interesting time here. There is very low unemployment and are currently more jobs than people - an interesting situation because it doesn't necessarily mean things are great. Some businesses are struggling to get people to do simple jobs like kitchen hands and can't afford to raise wages and are having to close.

Perth is the sunniest city in Australia and one of the driest. So even though it is winter, days are still sunny and bright (mostly) and warm. On Thursday, Welsh lady Lisa and I went to Cottesloe beach for a sunning session and met up with Sabina, another girl from our hostel.



It was about 29C and beautifully sunny with cloudless blue skies. We lay for hours chatting, reading books and soaking up the rays before heading back to Perth on the train (about a half hour ride) with an ice cream.

Days since then have passed uneventfully - chatting to friends in the hostel, another interview with a job agency, coffee in a nearby cool cafe, reading in the sunshine of the courtyard, having dinner with friends, catching up on sleep, wandering around Northbridge (where the hostel is), Perth CBD, and trying to get over a nasty cold which is heading around the city at the moment.

Have also been celebrating one of the lad's birthdays - Mark of the rolling in the leaves fame - so of course it was obligatory to go out to Black Betty's for a beverage or two.



Caroline, our crazy fab stalker friend we met in Melbourne and fellow mad Take-Thatter, arrived in sunny Perth last night after a stunning trip to Uluru (Ayres Rock). So we met her at Moon Cafe - a funky place nearby - with her friends and caught up on all our news.

Things are going swimmingly but I've found it quite hard to get into the swing of things here. I'm looking forward to getting on the road properly, going up the west coast and seeing and doing some proper stuff - even though it's going to cost a bomb.

As we have been remarking this week, travel is great for broadening the mind (and wasitline), for meeting new people and seeing new things. But it can be quite a lonely experience to be thousands of miles from the people who know and love you best.

When you're getting up for work and are in the same old patterns you would be in at home - just in an unfamiliar and probably sunnier place - it can seem a bit pointless at times.

When you're feeling low and like getting away from everything - there is no where to hide in a hostl. You are surrounded constantly with people judging you, getting mad at you for making a noise, complaining if you decide not to go out, looking at you strangely for mad acts and it is hard to completely relax.

Of course, there are moments of just absolute fun and wonder - seeing a west coast sunset, sitting up debating til the wee hours of the morning with new friends, the feeling that, even though you've just met this person, you have a connection and you can rely on them for all sorts of things, the sunshine on your face when it's raining at home, seeing life through the eyes of people from all over the world, taking in another point of view, listening to new sounds...

But this is all to end soon - I have booked my final flight home. I will be leaving Christchurch on New Zealand's south island on November 30, and arriving in Birmingham on December 1 ready for a family Christmas in Lanzarote. Some people have all the luck, eh