We've arrived!!!

Had a horrific start, both of us sick and seriously jet lagged. Spent the best part of three days in bed. Feeling better now though, :-)

Cottesloe where we are staying is beautiful. Here is a picture of the beach:



And the view from our window:



We'll add more when we have a faster interweb connection.

We have learnt one thing; people in hostels are weird. They all have this look they give you, like they don't expect to see new faces, even though this is undoubtedly a backpacker's hostel where people are, inevitably, backpackers and therefore generally arrive and move on. Well, at least they're meant to. In reality, half the people have been here months. They are a mystery to us all; they don't appear to worry about money, as seen by the fact that they shop on the beach front where prices are ten times higher than Woolworth's a fifteen minute walk away, and they take taxis into Perth every weekend. They only eat instant noodles and pizzas, yet the kitchen is still sometimes devoid of any sort of pot, pan or utensil.

Even the ones passing through are oddities, talking about going on two week tours with adventure holiday companies, and their further travel plans and you wonder where their endless supply of money comes from. Our room mates are weird, at least the ones that have been here more than a few days are. There's a mother and her unbelievably skinny daughter with hair down to her waist. The mother's days are a mystery, but she's hardly here. The daughter's are not a mystery; she's always here. In fact she rarely leaves her bed, and when she does it's to stomp across the floor to the bathroom, where she does goodness knows what in there, but rarely does it sound like she's going to the loo. She looks anorexic and acts depressed-we joke that perhaps she's throwing up because we just can't figure her out.

Then of course there is those with laptops who gather in the hallway near the fire door. We've taken to joining them, sitting on the hard wood floor with our tiny laptop perched on our knees. The reason? It's the one place you can get a free internet connection. Oh, happy days.

OMG

OH EM GEE. Can't sleep. Too nervous...it's just sunk in that we're going to be on the other side of the world in a couple of days and will probably be there for the better part of a year. AAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

That picture really is horrible. Damn my wide face. Oh well, possibly soon to come: us in our swimming cossies. Muuuuch better.

Laura

Yikes

God, that picture looks awful. My hair is not usually that all over the place and I am usually not that red faced. I just don't photograph well. :-( Seriously, that was about our tenth attempt, because I kept blinking...

Just over twelve hours to go until we get our first flight. Then we'll be at Heathrow, and there should be time for a quick Burger King and to stock up on some snacks and sweets for the flight before we check in to our flight to Singapore, and from there, Perth!!!

We have found a few McDonalds around Perth with wifi (in case of absence of free wifi in the hostel), so should be able to update quite often.

My stomach is turning somersaults. Plus I feel quite sick, but I think that's because I ate too much desert. But I'm not as nervous as I thought, more excited. We're all packed-have ten times more clothes than we planned, but still tonnes of room left-and just have to remember our toothbrushes in the morning and that's it. Yay!!

Australia here we come!

Jenny

Is that us?

GASP is that us? An awful picture of us but a picture none the less. So now everyone knows what we look like. For anyone possibly reading this who isn't family or friend (doubtful), Jenny on the left, Laura on the right.

Less than 48 hours to go...

I'm so excited I don't think I'll sleep for the next two nights. I keep thinking how awesome it is going to be.

We have loads of random people (some of them who we've never met) giving us contact details for their friends and relatives in case we get stuck-so I hope that's an indication of how nice Australian people are. We have got in contact with some lovely people who house sat for us last summer, and who live not far from Perth, and they have assured us there is plenty of casual work at the moment (something about lots of people moving up north because of something...) which is nice. Casual work is just what we need.

We're much more organized than we seem (although our bedroom is a tip-stuff everywhere) and tomorrow is our dedicated packing day. Then Wednesday we'll have to be up early to get to the airport. Ahhh! It's completely insane. We have had a few sudden bouts of terror, but we will be okay. Have heard of people who have worked for their accommodation at the hostel we're staying at, so that's a good sign-we could do with that. And we are armed with recipes that will keep us going with food for several days at a time, and hopefully win over some of our fellow backpackers (like vegi-curry...mmmm-could eat it for a week, might actually do so).

Also, teeny tiny computer is brilliant!! I have got the hang of the keyboard now by using it to write for the last two days-my real laptop feels huge now though...we'll just have to find a wireless hotspot to use it and we're sorted.

Jenny

Aussie Dollars

HOW COOL ARE AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS??? With the teeny tiny transparent windows. I will never get tired of holding them up and looking through them. I'll be doing it every time I pay for something. I'll have to ask someone in Australia why they have that...

That's all I wanted to say...I'm unnaturally amused by the tiny windows in their currency.

Laura

P.S. I watched a video all about making Australian money, because I'm sad like that, and it's made of plastic. So it doesn't rip and you can even get it wet. Coolness.

One week to go

One week to go! OH EM GEE!!! Aussie dollars are ordered so we're ok for money when we get there and we have about £20 for Heathrow to get some lunch, so we just need to remember to get some Singaporean dollars at the airport. Still have to buy a couple of things (including a wallet or purse that isn't falling apart). We found it surprisingly hard to find plastic bowls and cutlery suitable for taking with us. We thought we'd better take our own in case the hostel isn't very well equipped in that sort of thing, and apparently you have to pay a deposit to borrow cutlery so it's easier if we have our own.

We practised packing our clothes and had looooaaads of room because our backpacks are pretty big, so that means we can take a bit extra with us and also have room to bring things back when we finally return. We're both very scared now, as well as very excited. I think I'm more excited than scared at the moment, quite looking forward to the journey even though I hate long haul flights (although I've only done two before, to and from Ecuador on the way to Peru). I think the closer we get the more our scarednessosity will outweigh our excitement.

There's internet in the hostel but it's expensive so we won't be using that for much more than emails. Jenny is taking a tiny laptop with her (it's literally about 30x15cm or something...I don't know, I can't measure things) so if we can find somewhere with free wireless (bound to be a cafe somewhere...hopefully) we'll update from there. There'll probably be one more post before we leave and then after that expect our next one to be from the other side of the world. Woohoo!

Edit: Changed time to Perth time...has been on some American time for ages and just thought to change it...was going to do Swiss but thought we'll be there next week so it's on Perth time. A bit confused though because it's GMT+8 and I thought it was GMT+7...perhaps it's because the UK are on British summer time?

What's that you say? Why yes, you CAN has a random Frankie Boyle picture while anticipating a real picture of us. Does he fear the Large Hadron Collider? He certainly does.

Ahhh!!!

Cannot believe that we will be going so soon.

Our big issues at the moment are getting Australian dollars in cash (although we will have emergency back ups and can access swiss bank account), and this stupid thing with Singapore airlines. If someone else made your booking you have to give in a letter authorising the payment (which is stupid logic-it's already been authorised, it went through on the credit card months ago) and Singapore airlines like to make things difficult for you by only having their offices open at inconvenient times. We've emailed them and hope they'll say we don't have to do it (it is pointless afterall) but if we do then I don't know how it'll get done.

Money is a little bit of an issue, a little more would be nice, but I think we've enough to survive on for a few months.

We've still got a few things on the shopping list, but the closer it gets the more organised we're becoming. We've got basically our first month sorted, and enough to last us another month, that's the main thing. So we can at least survive until Christmas.

Soooo excited!!!

Jenny

Yay visas!

Firstly, thanks to the few people who commented a while ago. I haven't checked the blog for a couple of months so I didn't notice the comments before (which were quite reassuring). Jenny hasn't posted in ages but we'll hopefully be updating at least once a week once we get to Perth.

It was my 18th birthday yesterday so we applied for our visas and they were accepted within a few hours, which completely amazed us. I thought it would take a couple of days at least but it was so quick. All we really need to do now is the RSA course and we have to give this stupid letter to Singapore Airlines. We only have two and half weeks until we leave!!! We have a few last minute things we need to buy and we need to practice packing but other than that we're practically all set.

AHHH!!! It's really getting scary now. And yet it still doesn't seem real. Once we get there though we'll panic, big time. Must remember to find out about getting money exchanged, we need to order some Australian dollars, as well as a few Singaporean dollars for the airport, so we can get some food or whatever while we're transferring.

Not long now. And I know I keep saying this but we honestly will have a picture up soon. It will probably be one of us at the airport or something! It's just very hard to get Jenny in front of a camera. Off to make a list of things to pack for the millionth time (I think making lists calms me ^_^)

Laura

Hostel booked!

We've got a hostel booked for the whole of October now. We also booked for over the Christmas/New Year period at another hostel, which we should have done earlier really because it's difficult to get somewhere during that time. But we found one that's clean and cheap and even has a swimming pool so if all else fails, we'll just stay in the pool all Christmas.

We're both shit scared. It's getting real now and it's not rare for the both of us to be thinking "What the hell are we doing? We can't do this, we're the least confident girls in the whole world." But then we think "NO! We will not let shyness get the best of us. We will be brave and strong and WE WILL SURVIVE." Don't be surprised if we're dead by September though.

Not long now and we have made some funny towards our funds. Having some difficulty though and really need to try harder to get some babysitting or something. Anyway, there is an update.

Laura

First bar tending experience

Just spent five hours being swiss bar maids ^_^ Sore feet all round but it was quite fun and we've learnt next time to wear comfy shoes, if you have to wash glasses too keep an eye on how many are clean and dirty, get sleep before hand so you don't get too tired and eat a lot before too so you don't have to starve or try and eat while you're serving people. It was fun though and pretty easy too. Too tired to talk to much about it though XD

OH EM GEE!

Just booked our flights! It is now officially official! October the first. Veeeery long flight XD Made sure that it was on a 727 rather than the one which is like a flying hotel. We don't quite trust them; what if it just suddenly fell out of the sky?!? XD

Later we're going to put up a photo of ourselves as well (tomorrow probably). No backing out now!!! So scary. Next thing to do is probably book a hostel for when we first arrive and for Christmas-or alternatively email round anyone we remotely know and see if they'll put us up for a bit.

We've got so much to sort out, not to mention earning money to worry about. I hope over the summer there'll be opportunities for things (literally we are willing to do almost anything-garden, paint, babysit, clean, so we're hoping we'll find something). With the two of us and no real outgoings I hope it won't be too hard to save up the money we need as a starting point. I'd love a part time job, but with no real experience at anything it's not easy. People are surprisingly unwilling to give jobs to people with no experience, even if they're jobs a monkey could do.

Hopefully I've got some babysitting lined up (fingers crossed) so if that's regular then that'll help and we've three whole months after Laura's finished her exams to find odd jobs and stuff like that to do.

It's starting to feel real at last. It was feeling a bit like 'might never happen' type thing, but now we have flights it's like 'phew, we are really going'. We are so going to fall to pieces in the first few weeks, but then I think we'll pull ourselves together and have such a good time. It's going to be awesome!!!!

Responsible Service of Alcohol

Been looking for RSA courses in Perth and I've found quite a few you can do online. As far as I can tell you get the same certificate so it's just the same as doing a course somewhere in Perth which would be a bit of a hassle. So might do it online before we go or something if that's possible, so we're already prepared for when we get there. I am a bit confused about it because there seems to be a separate one for New South Wales and possibly Queensland...I'm not really sure but I read something that said some certificates are valid across the whole of Australia and some are specific to certain states. Confused...I'll have to look it up. But anyway if we can do it online I think that would be so much easier than doing a six hour course which seems a bit hard to find in Perth. Plus I think online is cheaper which is good. Anywho, going to look at a few more hostels.

Laura

Lists and more lists

I am well getting into the list making. My laptop is broken at the moment so I spent yesterday afternoon making a list of things we'll need for Oz because I was so bored without it. It's quite a long list and I'm worried there won't be room for everything but we will have two big backpacks and two small ones so it should hopefully be ok. I even started revising yesterday four months in advance because I have nothing to do without my computer. It's made me realise how much time I spend sitting in front of it though. I should stop that. I'm aiming to go to the gym a couple of days a week from now on and spend A LOT more time on my history coursework. Anyway, back to stuff to do with Australia. I also wrote a list of documentation type things we need to make sure we have with us and a list of things we need to get done before we go. I think that in terms of hostels what we need to do is make sure we know where we're going to be in the high season and book hostels or find someone to stay with and then the rest of the time just wing it and do whatever. But we need to have some sort of plan, we can't just wander around all over the place.

Why is no one reading this? People should read it. Grrr. We should put up a picture of ourselves and hopefully people will go "Oooh who are those two beautiful girls?" and then come and read out blog XD It's taking a lot of effort to post this considering my eyes really hurt for some reason so I think I will stop there. Ow my eyes :(

Laura

Eek.

We have begun some serious planning. We have a list of places we want to go, we have begun compiling a list of hostels, and are considering beginning in Perth again now. We had settled on Sydney, and now we've yoyoed back to the original idea.

The TV kept telling us to go to Perth. That must be a sign. It's four hours nearer for one thing (anything to take time off that horrendously long flight is welcome) and Freemantle, we have discovered, is only twenty minutes from Perth City centre. On a map it is ridiculously close. They must have good public transport too, because John and Christine (who housesat for us) have had students to stay with them before and talked about them going out at night and stuff. Also, Freemantle looks pretty nice.

My biggest concern is having places to stay. It's hardly practical using hostels, and difficult to book when we don't really have a definite idea of where we'll be when.

Mum's cousin lives somewhere (fingers crossed for Melbourne or Sydney, although Perth would be alright or I suppose Canberra wouldn't be so bad) so kind of hoping maybe they will have a spare room where we can stay for a week or two. I think they are obligated to offer, as they are family.

The plan will probably be to spend October and November, possibly December, in Perth, and then fly across to Sydney and before the autumn weather sets in go up to Cairns or something in Queensland (via Brisbane). Then hopefully towards the end we will be able to get in a visit to Alice Springs and back to Perth for the tail end. It's looking like we're most likely going to have to rely on doing some fruit picking, although I'd rather not if I could help it. I'm not that keen on the thought of being in a really rural area. I don't think I'm fit enough. If we're lucky we'll be able to find some bar work or something.

Any tips on finding work, or stories about how other people did their working holiday, would be so helpful. We really haven't a clue what we're doing, and I'm worried we'll get there still without a clue what we're doing.

Groovy Bananas.

I think we are getting well stuck into it. We have found lots of hostels to stay in (Laura has found one in Melbourne where they have meet the neighbours cast nights-we have so got to do that, I love neighbours) and lots of cool places to visit. I want to take the train to Alice Springs or Darwin because you go right across the desert. It is a few hundred dollars (it's not a bad deal with a YHA card), but I figure we can maybe get the folks to fork out for big things like that.

Was worried about cash for a while, but I should have a few thousand dollars by the time we go, and we are being supplied with credit cards and we have three months to do odd jobs to earn money before we go. We will have to advertise ourselves as girl Fridays as mum says. Hopefully we will have enough cash to last us a while, and then will be lucky with jobs.

Must get Dad to book flights though as soon as poss. They are the main thing, and booking hostels. That is another thing that needs sorting, credit cards in our names for booking hostels. And we need to do that by April/may at the latest. Six months in advance seems the best time to book hostels. Scary though...still we are all nerves, but I think that's normal. Have read lots of experiences of people who have just showed up and done fine, and we are both Miss over prepared so I am sure we'll be fine. Fingers crossed anyway.

Yikes.

Oh dear. We are both getting scared and a bit depressed, mostly worrying about whether we are going to get jobs and be able to manage on our own. There is some debate as to whether we will be dead within the first week or not.

I am starting to feel a little bit more optimistic though. Have lots of good ideas, like getting a YHA membership (which gives you lots of good offers, even stuff like 2 for 1 on pizza at some place, which will mean we can always have pizza if we're strapped for cash), and joining WWOOF, more as a back up in case we need somewhere to stay when we are broke and maybe good for seeing somewhere more rural.

I think we'll buy a tent and camp a few nights whenever we fancy a break. That would be cool.

I'm not sure about flying into Perth, because the people that house sat for us actually live in Freemantle. I think we would be better off flying into Sydney like everyone else. Apparently youth hostels there can often help you out with work, or they have things posted on their noticeboards. Might set aside a wedge of cash for just that purpose, staying in a hostel for a week or two while we look for some work, or finding some before we get there would be good, but I'm not sure of the chances of that. Or maybe find a house sit just for a few weeks when we first arrive while we're sorting out what to do. We don't know yet I. Plenty of time anyway to figure out an exact plan of action, ten whole months.

It's kind of terrifying though, thinking it will be this year. Maybe we will make an initial itinery when Laura comes home from half term.

Ridiculously late. Still suffering from staying up too late during Christmas. Must go to bed.

Jenny

House Sitting

We have decided that house sitting is The Way Forward. It gives us places to stay without having to pay rent and we probably won't have to do much except maybe look after a garden or some pets, keep the house clean and tidy and make sure no one breaks in. Plus we're not the type of people to have wild parties and stuff so I think we're responsible enough to look after a house. And then we don't have to spend our money on rent, just food and stuff. If anyone reads this it would be nice if you could recommend a couple of websites, especially if there are any that are free for house sitters because a lot of them cost to register which is annoying. It's not that much money but it's just annoying to have to pay. Anywho...soon we will put a picture of ourselves up...it might have to wait until February though because I've just got back to school and don't go home again until the 8th and I don't think we have any pictures of the two of us floating around.

Also, it looks like we will not start off in Melbourne after all because our uncle who we were going to stay with has been given early retirement and probably won't be in Australia anymore. But the people who housesat for us in the summer said if we were ever in Oz and needed somewhere to stay to contact them. So because they are extremely kind people we may be starting off just outside Perth instead. Over and out.

Laura