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.