Thirteen Weeks in Australia

How times flies… when you’re having fun? Or how time flies when you are just doing ‘stuff.’ Existing, if you will.

It has been thirteen weeks since I moved to Australia, the country where even the plants can kill you. After spending three years on the road, working intermittently when the opportunity arose, but mostly learning to survive with very little money, I decided that the best thing that I could do for my future would be to work full time for a little bit. And if I was going to do this, I decided that I would work in Australia, the home of the highest minimum wage in the world. It is also a place that accepts Americans and Brits on its working holiday visa program.

India vs. UAEI arrived in Perth (just in time for the ICC World Cup – that’s cricket), way out west, and found a nice little shared house with a garden. I lived there for nearly two weeks and started working for an environmental charity, something I believe in passionately. After one and a half days, I quit. I loved telling people about the environmental issues, but I couldn’t deal with asking them for money – I am not a salesman. And then I got a call from a friend, 1,000 km north, telling me that he had work for me if I could get there the very next day. So I jumped on a plane and headed north.

Looking out the plane window, I was overwhelmed. All I could see was red, flat nothingness, all the way to the horizon. Being a lover of rural areas, I thought I was heading to the countryside that I so desired – it was (is) a little different from what I expected. And so I started working.

Carnarvon from the air

Cyclone Olwyn CarnarvonApart from being hit by a category three cyclone with 200 km/s winds, life has been uneventful. I work seventy hour weeks, I’m still here. I have bought a 4 x 4 that I will convert into a mobile house and I dream of what I will do next. Buying something so big after not buying anything big (except plane tickets) for so many years feels quite bizarre. In fact, this is the first car that I have ever bought in my life. But it is a stepping stone.

I find it hard to not live life on the road, but I am thinking of what next. In fact, I am thinking of what next all the time and that keeps me going. In the meantime, I’ll keep writing more stories and dreaming of those that haven’t happened yet.

What is the place like where I am now? It is very red. And I think that I am a wizard.

Carnarvon river, red

Guess what colour the river is..

'You're a wizard, Harry'

‘You’re a wizard, Harry’

By | 2015-05-02T00:05:22+00:00 April 28th, 2015|Stories|0 Comments

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