Farm work September - it's not everyday you pluck a rooster!

We spent a day packing up our stuff, we ended up having 2 rucksacks, 2 backpacks, 2 suitcases and 2 bags as we needed to take some food with us as well as our belongings. When we had finished packing it was time to say goodbye to our wonderful hosts and head into Brisbane city for a night in the hostel. I struggled with all my bags so I waited at a bus stop while Joaquín took his stuff to the hostel then he returned to help me.

I had the worst nights sleep ever in a hostel; as everyone in the dorm room seemed to snore! It was up early to catch our bus for the 8 and a half hour journey to St George.

We had to change buses a few times and we stopped for lunch at Moonie Crossroads. Reaching St George at about 4pm, Kate was there to pick us up and drive us out about 30/40 minutes to the property. Where she showed us to our home for the next 3 months, Dave popped in with a beer to have a chat. We spent the rest of the evening unpacking ready for work the next morning.

Week 1
We are working on a 350,000 acre cattle property, I can't even compute how big that actually is but I don't think I will even see half of it while I'm here.

Up bright and early everyday for a 7am start. The first day Dave showed us the animals and then I went over to the house and met the children, Digby (7) and Claudia (5). Claudia's welcome was wonderful...saying "yay, you are my new backpacker. I love you." That came with a hug too! I got a tour of the house and garden - feeding the lamb, chickens and watering the plants.

The children were still on school holidays this means this first week would not be the normal routine, which was nice as it gave me some time to get to know the kids. In the afternoon I went for a swim with them in their pool. Finishing up the day by watering plants and feeding and locking up the animals for the night.

For my second day Kate, the kids and I went into the local town so I could remember the way and know my way around the town. We got a bit of food shopping and headed back.

This first week was mainly learning the routines and the property. My first morning job is to feed the horses and lock them in the stalls, yard or paddock. The 4 horses and ponies in were Luna, Bluebell, Oman and Illusion; the other horses were out in the big paddocks.

I then go to the house to make the kids lunches ready for the day, make sure they were eating breakfast, getting dressed, teeth cleaned and bedroom was tidy. Next I needed to go outside feed the chickens and collect the eggs, feed the lamb, water the garden/plants and check the hydroponics (a greenhouse with a fish watering system for growing herbs, fruit and vegetables). After that and a smoko (that is what they call morning break) I would have time to do another job or two before lunchtime.

As this was not a normal week with the kids off school, I didn't have an afternoon routine as such, yet!

Other things I did this week:

I met the 'neighbours' Dan, Michael, Jesse, Mikey and Annie. Dan works for Dave and him and his family live on the property too. Jesse and Mikey go to school with Digby and Annie and Claudia go to Kindergarten together.

I had to pluck the feathers off a rooster. The 3 roosters were old enough to be killed for dinners so we chopped the heads off (one ran around like a headless chicken), put them in boiling water and plucked them ready to be gutted. The feathers were eaiser than I thought it would be to pluck out.

I did some craft with the children, worked the ponies, burnt rubbish at the dump and organised the fridge.

We get the weekends off so on the Saturday we went into the town. We only get signal just before we reach town and in the car Joaquín's phone was ping, ping, ping...he had forgotten to tell everyone he was going to be unreachable. I showed Joaquín around the town, we did a spot of shopping and then headed down by the river to a local festival where "ABBA" were playing.

Once that had finished we grabbed our food shopping for the week and headed back for a chilled out evening.

We woke in the night to it pouring down so we actually spent the day cleaning and chilling. We were going to head into town for some more of the festival and market.

Brisbane and Gold Coast - September 2017

I was feeling quite good after a great nights sleep...but it was up early and time to head back to the airport to catch a flight up to Brisbane. A short flight but we had amazing views out the window on the way of Sydney, the Gold Coast and Brisbane.

Once arriving we jumped on the train and made our way to some lovely gardens were we found a nice shaded spot to rest with our bags. 

I went in search for some picnic food in the city centre. It was then time to meet up with Joaquín's cousin, Paola, we caught the train with her all the way to her home. This is where we were staying for a while until we found a job. We met Tom, Paola's husband, and got the grand tour of the property with Snoopy the dog. After dinner we had an early night.

I was so lucky not to be feeling jetlagged my body must have set it's clock back very quickly.

The next day we just stayed at the house. We met Tomas another guest they had staying, took the dog for a walk, planed a few things we wanted to do in Brisbane. Then met Francisco when he arrived back from school.

For the next few weeks we either stayed at home chilling and looking for jobs or we were out exploring.

The things we got up to:

Looked at some beautiful churches and cathedrals of Brisbane

Walked in both Botanical Gardens in Brisbane

Hired some bikes to zoom around the city

Jumped on a ferry to see Brisbane from the water

Seeing amazing views over the city from Mount Coot-tha

Museum of Brisbane and going up the clock tower

Planetarium

Queensland museum

Gold Coast
One day we took a trip down to the Gold Coast by train, this took us just over 3 hours. Once we got there we took a stroll along Surfers Paradise beach, ate an early lunch and then ventured up the tallest residential tower in the world. 77 floors up to Skypoint. We had magnificent views of the Gold Coast. 

Of course the day would not be complete without and ice-cream by the beach. In the afternoon Joaquín and I went and played miniature golf...this was his first time playing and managed to get a hole in one but I still won both rounds. It was a lot of fun. We took one last stroll along the beach before making our 3 hour journey back.

My Birthday
This was my first birthday I had ever had away from the UK. It started with Joaquín waking me up with breakfast in bed and him singing happy birthday to me with my cake. I got given some beautiful opal earrings and necklace. It was then a 2 hours drive down to Tambourine Mountain were we went for Tree Top Challenge. This was a high ropes course, first we got suited and booted, then it was off to climb the courses. We started off on the easy green ones making our way up to the extreme black course! The black course was definitely challenging and it was made more difficult because we were so tired from all the other climbing up and down ladders, balancing on tightropes, walking bridges, zipwiers and Tarzan jumps from the other courses. It was then time for the drive back home and stopping on the way home at a restaurant for dinner. I had an amazing birthday.

Driving the car in Australia...at least I am still driving on the same side of the road as England but the indicators are on the opposite side so I kept putting the windscreen wipers on!

In this time we managed to find a job and we were to leave Brisbane for another adventure.

To Australia again...the flight and Sydney - 03.09.17 - 05.09.17

Well after travelling home from Oz to go to the wedding in Santorini and then spending a very short time at home trying to sort my house out and seeing friends I was back on a plane back to Oz.

I said my goodbyes, hopped on a train to Heathrow and checked in for my very long journey back to Australia. I flew on the same plane from London to Sydney only stopping in Dubai to refuel. This was such a quick stop after disembarking, going through security and a toilet stop it was time to start boarding again. I tried to stay on Australian time on the plane after stopping in Dubai so I wouldn't have jetlag too bad. It was easy to stay awake when I needed to but getting to sleep was much harder.

I left the UK on the Sunday 3rd and arrived in Australia on Tuesday the 5th...I had missed out a whole day due to the long flight and the time difference.

Arriving about 5am with virtually no sleep I was in for a day of trying to stay awake till night time. After I collected my backpack and made it through customs I found someone waiting for me...Joaquín! I was so excited and happy to see him after being away. We made our way to the taxi rank and headed to our hotel to drop our bags but luckily they said they had our room ready so we could check in there and then...I was quite relieved to have a quick shower before heading out for breakfast. 

We found Celsius (a great recommendation from Ling - thanks), this was a small cafe right on the harbour with the waves crashing on the rocks beside us. Afterwards we took a ferry over to Circular Quay and made our way to the Pylon Lookout of the Harbour Bridge. 

We read on the way up how they managed to build the bridge and then had spectacular views from the top of Sydney. It was clear but windy so we could see for miles.

I was fighting back the sleep and had lunch but I couldn't resist a quick nap on returning to the hotel. I had to meet up with Susan and Janet very briefly to collect some of my things I had left at theirs (it saved me taking it all the way back home just to bring it back again). 

• It was then time to eat again; Joaquín and I met up with Luis for dinner. We ate yummy Italian food while we had a great catch up but I could keep my eyes open much longer so it was definitely time now to sleep.

Santorini - Becoming Mr and Mrs Bance

Day of the wedding

14th August 2017

In the moring me and the girls chilled around the pool before going to grab an early lunch at Avacardo restaurant. I had a Greek dish which was delicious. On heading back to the hotel it was time to start getting ready for the big day!

After a quick photo shoot we were ready and Barry and Justin were here with the taxi. We arrived at the venue to find Jude and Groomsmen waiting in the shade...it was so hot to wait in the sun. As everyone else was arriving, we all gathered around with our water chatting before we took our seats. 

The view from this venue was amazing but as we were sat in the hot sun we had parasols to give us a little shade.

The bride had arrived and it was time for her to walk down the aisle. 

At first the bridesmaids came down in 2's then Miranda walked down in floods of tears which I think set off everybody and when Suzy followed with her mum everybody was fighting back the tears...including me! It was such an amazing moment to see 2 people you have known for a very long time finally tie the knot. 

I was so honored to be there and be part of their special day. Once the vows were said with chocked voices they were pronounced husband and wife and became Mr and Mrs Bance.

Time for a few photos before we all went inside the venue to welcome the newly wed couple onto the dance floor for some dancing before dinner was served.

We were all sat on round tables in places where Jude and Suzy had been on holiday together and then in the places our names were spelt out in gold. 

The newly weds sat on their own table with the wonderful backdrop of the cliffs and ocean. We had four courses with the spectacular view of the sunset.

Just before the sunset we all made our way outside for the cutting of the cake and more photos.

It was then time to make our way back to our seats for dessert while we had many many speeches.

Jude went first to thank everyone who was there then everyone else's followed. Each in their own rights funny and well put together to shed many different lights on the couple.

When the speeches and food was all over it was time to start the party and fill the dance floor for a night of dancing. 

We had a song sung by Cedrik and the bouquet was thrown by Suzy...who was the lucky one to catch it???

The venue was closing but the wedding celebrations had to continue so a lot of us headed into town to a bar and continued to dance the night away (moring away!) 

Finishing off with more chicken nuggets and arriving back to the hotel to see the sunrise.

After only a few hours sleep it was time to pack up, grab some breakfast and make our way to the airport and say goodbye to the beautiful island and wish the couple a wonderful honeymoon.

Santorini - Suzanna and Jude's wedding

After a few days in England unpacking and trying to find some shoes for the wedding. It was time to pack again and head off down to London. I was in a rush to get ready that I was thinking on the way to the train station 'what have I forgotten?' It was my evening outfits but it was too late to turn back and get them! I arrived at Suzy's and we tried to piece some outfits together. We then went to the pub for dinner and a pub quiz. There was 8 of us on the team and we had 3 rounds; general knowledge, name that cartoon character and name that song. It was very much a whole team effort, we got 55 marks out of 64! We won and got to choose the first box, a mystery what we would win! We got the highest prize £40, that was £5 each. 

We finished late into the night and ended up going to bed at 12.

With about a 2 hour nap, the alarms rang and it was time to get up and head to the airport for our flight to Santorini! When we got air-side it was time to grab some breakfast before the flight. I ended up swapping with Peter so I could have a window seat and he could have the aisle. As soon as I got in my seat I was dead to the world so much so that I kept waking, looking out the window and we hadn't moved. I thought, 'this is a long time we are taking or was I only asleep for 5 minutes!' It was then announced that someone was ill so we missed our take off slot so had to wait for another one...back to sleep I go. Finally after about 2 hours we were on the runway and taking off. 

I sleep some more meanwhile most the people on the plane was the wedding party so everyone was having a great time chatting to one another. I did wake up in the end and join in in conversation. After landing we had a group photo and I got a transfer with Fay, Eloise and Colette.  I was sharing a hotel room with them. Upon arriving at the hotel...the lady said she only had 3 down on the booking not 4, we had to start ringing the company to find out what had happened and get the most communicate we had booked for 4. This was not really what we needed after the delay with the plane. We mange to sort it and had a little time to chill by the pool before having to get ready for the evening out at a meal with everybody. Delicious food was followed by drinks out on the town. As the girls and I were quite tired we had an earlyish night.

The next day the girls and I spent it just relaxing by the pool. We had wine tasting booked for the evening but before that we went to grab some dinner. Our hotel recommended the restaurant at a sister hotel which was only down the road. We took a short walk there and asked a shop keeper the way, they opened the back of the shop and we headed down step...turning the corner it opened out on a magnificent site with cliff views.

It was still so hot with the sun beating down on us we had to sit inside but it still manged to follow us in. After a huge meal we made our way to wine tasting. When everybody had arrived we had our platter of wine served. We had 3 white wines, 1 rose, 1 red and a dessert wine with bread sticks to cleanses the palette. 

I tasted a sip from each then drank it with the least favourite first...although I couldn't drink the red wine so I swapped it for someone else's rose (that was my favourite) . Considering I don't like wine I did a good job of polishing them off! We didn't want the night to end so it was off out to a bar, we got the private area...I really enjoyed talking to people and getting to know them more. Was it time for chicken nuggets?!

Last day before the wedding, this day was spent with girls and boys separate (bit like another stag and hen). The men went off on a boat for the day then headed out to a bar. The ladies spent the day at a pool party.

We arrived and got shown to our beds for the day then we got waited on. Ordering drinks and food...this was a very chilled day dipping in the pool and sipping drinks. 

Later on a famous Greek DJ came and started a set but as the sun set we all headed back so we couldn get an early night ready and rested for the wedding. On the way back Suzy wouldn't walk to the taxi rank as she didn't want to bump into Jude at the bar they were are...some people went ahead to bring the taxi back but it wouldn't come so we had to make our way but luckily they had bumped into the boys and they locked Jude in the toilet so that they wouldn't see each other before the wedding!