Meeting Family

A special update to the blog today, we met family. Today we met Michael Daly. Con Daly’s brother. He has been over in Australia for years back and forth since the 70’s. We met and discussed Australian life aswell as some of the places he had been to for work reasons like Oman, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and many more. It was good to hear all the old stories. We took a photo which is a Christmas present for Granny Daly…

Festive Greetings,

Conor

South America Montage

Hey flashback to the good old days of us in South America. Here is our adventure revisited
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz8eovSFZwQ

Day 11-24 Sales job anyone?

Its been a while since we have updated the blog but that’s not to say that the past two weeks haven’t been eventful….its been interesting to say the least and some strange characters have been seen and heard over the past fortnight. We probably arrived in Sydney at an akward enough time to be fair in that all the backpackers swamped into Sydney a little before us so accommodation and jobs are not plentiful. Luckily (that might be a bad term to use) we got cheap accommodation in a place called Dulwich, which is about 20 min’s outside the city. Although the name suggests that it is Dull, believe me it is far from that!! There has been a bit of trouble here, one night we were awoken at around 3.30am to hear what seemed like a big fight going on not too far from our room. We heard screams and banging! Someone then locked themselves in the bathroom and refused to come out and the language out of them….you wouldn’t believe it…they even used the “other F” word. They were way worse than any of us or anyone from Kiloughter! Even when we get up watching United, people are still up and bottles of drink can be seen! There have been a few little incidents but it has calmed down recently and a night clerk has been appointed now so a calmer atmosphere can be felt in the air. Order has been restored for now.

It’s a really nice complex though and so cheap so that makes it worth it for now and we are close to shops. The park is a 10 minute jog so we are keeping fit aswell. We have even started playing football with a local team here. Their season is over now but we take part in their training sessions and they are real genuine guys who have the craic. They look like tough guys but they are as sound as a pound and very welcoming. It’s great to be back playing football again!

The job hunt has been a pain in the behind. Our first interview was with a marketing organisation (whose clients are charity) who wanted sales staff. Basically they want you to hound people on the streets!! There were over 40 at the interview and observation day. We met some really nice people and some weirdo’s to say the least. I had a few great conversations with a Belguim guy who has been here over a year and will continue his journey in Oz for another year. A strange couple were at the interview. The woman was eccentric and left after being told she was too loud. Her husband was crazy and told us how he could be a billionaire and that he use to be a drug addict. He made everyone in the room feel really akward when he discussed how his wife was a manic schizophrenic and use to be a prostitute. We had a pint after and one of the guys told us how he had no accommodation in Sydney and no money…yet the same guy was on his fifth pint!!

Tom got chosen ahead of other possible candidates for a position of (and this is my title for it) “one of those annoying sales people that you see in the street trying to sell you something” for Global Interactive. Fair play to him though, I mean it’s a tough job but someone has to do it and we want to work to enjoy our lifestyle here and save for another few adventures in Oz and (IF we ever come back to Recession-land (i.e. Ireland) ) another country. We have had early nights to allow Tom to get some beauty sleep for work in the morning. We have had to hit the hay at 10 past the 11 and Tom rises at 6am (does such a time exist!!!). “Flicky an Solas” is what he says before he goes to sleep!! Can Kieran Costello please text Tom the Irish for “Turn off the light” because I can’t tell him!!! Tom’s job relies on him making sales so basically if you don’t make sales then you don’t get paid. These seem to be the only jobs going at the moment and they are not worth it. Mike and myself went to another sales interview and once again it was commission based so there was no real point in taking it as it wouldn’t be worth your while forking out on transport and ending up with no pay at the end of the week. All the backpacker jobs are gone in Sydney for now and ringing up has been frustrating to say the least!! Tom came home one morning and had the biggest smile on his face…his job was no more and he was delighted!!! Back to the drawing board again boy!

Sydney harbour is a very busy place at the moment with a whole host of Christmas parties. A lot of these take place on boats and look very posh. All the big business people are there dressed up to the nines. It’s an amazing site…and that’s just the women!! We came across a very interesting street performer along Sydney harbour called “JP” who looks like a bum but is a great performer. He juggles, throws and does all sorts with knifes, axes and sharp objects. I am probably not doing him justice with my description but he is a class act. People flocked to watch him. This guy could be a comedian he is so funny, his comedy is as good as his tricks. He had us in stitches. He just loves to entertain and no one is safe from his comedy as many of the spectators were commentated on and asked for fags, opinions etc..

He loves to entertain and makes a living out of his street acts. After watching him, we ONCE AGAIN went to the Dark Knight in the biggest IMAX in the world and it was ridiculously big and loud, which we loved.

Danielle, Joe, Ronan and Charlie have set up shop just outside the CBD in a lovely new unfurnished apartment and by the looks of it are getting all the furniture off the street :P Its a nice area and the shops are not too far from it so its nice to have them near us…incase we end up homeless soon, we can always knock on Joes door and sleep on their lovely sitting room floor or by their Christmas tree which Conor, Mike and myself helped decorate (well kinda!).

The great thing about Sydney and Australia is the weather!! No matter how down you get, the sun normally shines in the morning and this certainly raises your spirits! I imagined Australia to be like this and it hasn’t disappointed in that respect. Everyone has a smile on their face when the sun shines and this is my kind of place.

Lovely hurling,

Gary

Day 3-10 – House Hunting In The Sun

This is our first instalment of our new weekly blog!
We thought we would never be able to a day to day blog as eventually it would get repetitive as we wouldn’t be doing as many activities or have as many adventures.
Long gone are the days of jumping out of planes or off bridges! At least for the time being!

While passing through George Street in the city centre we decided a Hungry Jack’s was in order. “Hungry Jacks?” you might say. Hungry Jacks is the Australian equivalent of Burger King. It’s actually the exact same bar the name.
While the lads went up to order I went downstairs to the toilet. On my way I noticed some smoke but assumed there must be some rule breakers downstairs smoking. Upon exiting the toilet I noticed the building was being evacuated. I pegged it up the stairs and out the door to hear fire brigades and see people pointing to the top of the building. The workers apparently hopped the counters and ran for the exit without telling a single customer. Some staff they are! We watched in awe as the firemen tried to tame the blaze of the burning building. It was aptly named The Towering Inferno! They were successful but the fact they had to close the main street in Sydney did not sit well with some of the locals. One of them even assaulted a police officer and was taken down within seconds and thrown in the back of a paddy wagon! What a way to start our week!

One night we received word Joe, Danielle and Charlie were in town and up for some grub! We arranged to meet for some $8 steaks. We reacquainted with big hugs and manly handshakes! We enjoyed each others stories of our times in South America and New Zealand and all the activities and incidents we encountered! After our deliciously cheap steaks we headed to a nearby bar for a few quiet pints and some more chit chat about the recession back home followed by more stories of our adventures. A good night was had by all! (That’s right I said it again)!

When we began our house hunting journey our first goal was to find a place near the beach! We searched through the accommodation listings and arranged meetings so it was an excuse to visit each of the beaches of Sydney, Coogee, Bondi, Manly. Coogee was our first beach to explore but we had a quick stop on the way to make in Randwick. We headed over the Harbour Bridge while gawking in amazement at the Opera House. We had a look at a two bedroom apartment right in the middle between Sydney and Coogee Beach. Unfortunately this apartment was unfurnished and we would have to go back to looking. It’s the probably the most annoying thing ever when people don’t say whether the apartment is furnished or not in the listing! It’s cost us loads of phone credit!
While house hunting I had the big task of making the New Zealand Freestyle/Holiday video. I was driven crazy for the week as little errors kept propping up. Then I had numerous problems with Youtube before it was finally live on the net. If you haven’t seen it yet check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D2SGTAot6Q !

In the midst of all our searching we found an advert on a traffic light pole for the perfect sounding apartment. A Chinese man by the name of Ping Pong answered the phone with possibly the worst English of anyone living in Sydney. I had no clue what he was on about. For some reason I can’t understand Tom has a knack for understanding Chinese! We met up with him and looked at three of his properties, one of which the walls were made out of plywood! Not a great start but he was very keen to make the sale! That night we decided to get some Chinese food in one of the finest Chinese’s in Sydney. To our surprise we spotted our new friend working there. He proceeded to talk to us all night about the apartment and even gave me and Gary a soup on the house which Gary spilled all over himself. It reminded me of an episode of Father Ted when Doughal got sick on Ted at the baby contest. We left our friend hoping not to see him again but that would not be the case. He would spot us nearly everyday on George Street. It was almost as if he was following us everywhere we went.

Bondi Beach was our next stop and we visited this beach on three different occasions partly as an excuse to go to the beach! It’s such a contrast to go from the hustle and bustle of Sydney to the beautiful beaches of Coogee, Bondi and Manly! The beach itself is nice but is covered in GAA jersey wearing Irish. Within five minutes of kicking around on the beach we were ambushed by Enda from Athlone who joined us in a game of keepy uppys! He was trying outlandish scissor and bicycle kicks! Again there was no luck with any of the apartments as they were either too small, unfurnished or too expensive for us. Manly was the same story but the beach more than made up for it!
Eventually we settled for staying in a place in Dulwich Hills about twenty-five minutes outside the city. Minimum stay is a month and it’s really cheap so it will give us a chance to look for other accommodation and jobs without paying scandalous fees in hostels.

We received a text one day from our friend Andrew from our GAP Tour. He was back in town after returning from South America and New York and was keen for a few pints. We wouldn’t say no! He gave us a little tour of the harbour bridge area and lead us to a pub on The Rocks. The pub is one of the only in Sydney to brew its own beer and we were willing to experiment! It pretty much all tasted exactly the same as Heineken! After reminiscing of our tour and learning about Andy’s trip to Patagonia and the rest of his touring around South America we hit the road back to our hostel. Thank God for night buses otherwise we would be paying a fortune to taxi drivers!

Keep On Trucking,
Mike

Day 2 – Home and Away

After the doom and gloom of Conor’s blog yesterday (what was he on about), today was a lot brighter.It was the day that I had looked forward to for a very long time. After years of watching Home and Away and growing up with these characters (who also helped us relax in between lecturers), we would finally get to visit Summer Bay. It is amazing how people’s perceptions of a place change after a good night’s sleep and some good weather. Yesterday we were tired and cranky after our flight from New Zealand and the weather wasn’t great but waking up to the Sydney sun was a welcome change. We got some free breakie in the hostel and headed to the bus stop to catch our ride to Palm Beach, which is the name of the famous Home and Away beach. Whilst waiting for the bus we met a Cork man named John who was headed in the same direction as us. Funnily enough he had been in Sydney for 4 months and today was the first time he was going to head to Palm Beach…some Home and Away fan he is!!! It was 1hr 40mins to Palm Beach from Sydney central but the journey went fairly quick talking to John about his Australia experiences. He has been in Australia for 8 months and in this time he has been all around and worked on farms, labouring…you name it! He gave us tips about accommodation and told us (in that reassuring Cork accent) “ah you’ll be grand lads”, there is nothing better than hearing this from one of our own.

Finally we hit Palm Beach and it really did exceed our expectations. I was blown away (that’s such a corny phrase but I was!!)! We were living the dream (if only Kieran Costello was here), walking on the beach that we had seen on the TV for so many years. The beach that great characters such as Mr Stewart, Pippa, Irene, Chloe, Steven etc … had walked on, ran on, pondered their problems and made life changing decisions on. The sand was golden and the waves stunning. We walked along the beach at a snails pace to take in the scenery and posed for numerous photos before going to the Surf Club to get some much needed food (oh how I have wanted to say that for so many years). It was really cool sitting down outside the surf club eating our hot dogs and discussing past episodes. I don’t care what anyone says but deep down everyone still watches home and away and remembers all the episodes!! The place was very empty with less than fifty people to be seen. A lot of the activity took place in the water where a few kite surfers were doing their thing and pulling off some spectacular flips. Kite surfing looks class but I think we will learn to surf normally first before trying it with a kite. We’ll do well to get on a surf board never mind go in the water with it!! The calm feeling in the air just makes you so relaxed here and it is a completely different world to that of Sydney’s CBD. We saw numerous other Home and Away set locations and relaxed by a mini harbour and discussed how great it would be to rent a boat for a day and just chill. It is cheap enough to do this aswell. We might even buy one when we retire!! The next objective was to go swimming in the glorious waters that Palm Beach has to offer. Home and Away has offered us some great views in the past of Hayley, Shannon, Matilda etc ...with their perfect tans and bikini’s but now it was time for four white as sheets (with ridiculous farmer tans) Irish lads to do their thing. Conor decided to relax in the sun so Tom, Mike, John and I ran in and tackled the waves. John wasn’t far off as white as we were so we were all in the same boat! The water felt so good and with that we headed back to the city centre and said goodbye to John who we will more than likely see around Sydney again. After a hectic day we headed to the Cinema to see the latest Bond film which wasn’t great. I bitched that Pierce Brosnan was a much better James Bond than Daniel Craig and would pull more women. After a long and heated debate we fell asleep no doubt all dreaming that we will be starring as the next James Bond.

Closer each day,

Gary

Day 1 – Away from Home :(

After a long and eventful departure that included some of our usual drama (Gary not being able to locate his passport just moments before our check-in) we had made it to Sydney. Finally we had made it to the place we would call home. It would be our home for much longer than the usual 2 or 3 day stints that all the other locations we’d been had been awarded.

Everyone knew before we left the main goal of our travels was to hit Australia. Landing in the Airport it felt that part of our goal had been achieved. Before departing Ireland we knew the visits to Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Auckland, Christchurch and the many more were merely a means of achieving the goal. The goal had been achieved by us all but we had been rewarded in so many other ways by all these beautiful places. We were home and expecting some more beautiful and amazing experiences.

Today we were going to have some unforgettable experiences. Unfortunately they weren’t going to be beautiful or amazing experiences. Planning is normally one of our fortes but today we arrived in Sydney without a hostel. So after looking around the airport for a while we stumbled upon a Hostel called Globe. It would be our first Hostel experience in Australia. After a few Doughnuts we stumbled onto the bus to make our way into the CBD. I started to complain about the city quite early on into the bus trip but decided it deserved a change. As we got closer and closer to the city I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to some of the cities that had only been part of this goal that I had just achieved.

We got off in our Hostel on Kings Cross to be blinded by neon lights. Neon lights highlighted shops like The adult book store, “Massage” among many other no doubt sleazy places that I had no idea what went on inside. We didn’t wait outside too long and headed inside the Hostel. Globe appeared attractive from the outside. An important lesson in life is never judge a person from the exterior as they often are rotting inside. This was definitely the case for Globe Hostel. The Hostel room had 4 beds with no pillows, a crappy mattress; pipes all over the roof and an all over dingy feel to it. The bathroom looked like the room out of the cult classic “SAW”.

The rest of the day was spent briefly visiting the CBD. The Central Business District is fast moving compared to the little village of Kiloughter. People move fast and are willing to go through you if they have to. We decided it was best to get back to the Hostel before dark as we wanted to avoid the homeless, prostitutes and syringe junkies of Kings Cross and not all in that order. It was time for bed in our new home very far away from home.

Stay Posted,
Conor

Chapter 2- Regeneration

The time has come in which one chapter is closed and a new one begins. Welcome to Australia

Day 66 – Dream Catch Me

Our last day in New Zealand and one of nostalgia. In the last 38 days we have seen all that New Zealand has to offer and loved every minute of it. We have really grown to love the place and the people. The Kiwi’s are really friendly, genuine, helpful and fun people, I couldn’t say enough of them. We have covered 2 very different islands, travelled aprox. 3,253km of road, over 57 hours of bus travel, stayed in 15 different towns/villages/cities and 17 different hostels. In our travels we have seen some of the most amazing raw scenery: craggy coastlines, flourishing forests, snow-capped mountains, glacier fed lakes and unparalleled wildlife all beneath a brilliant blue sky (most of the time). We have often travelled for hours on a bus and see one car but millions of sheep and green land. The New Zealand landscape has many similarities to home except; where we have rivers New Zealand has crystal clear blue lakes, where we have hills New Zealand has beautiful snow capped mountains, where we have rock and stone New Zealand has geothermal springs and geysers, where we have housing estates and shopping centres New Zealand has national parks and wildlife reserves! Other than that they are pretty similar! Apart from the breath-taking scenery in New Zealand individually/together we have experienced some of the most amazing sensations and thrills of our lives. Between us we have, leapt off a 192metre tower in Auckland, jumped out of a plane over Lake Taupo, dropped over the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world at Rotorua, drifted through the world famous glow-worm caves in a big black rubber ring at Waitomo, hiked through the Franz Joseph glacier, completed a bungy at the first ever bungy site in the world at Queenstown and swam with dolphins in Kiakoura.

We have done a hell of a lot. Personally I have done things I taught I would never be able to do such as jump out of a plane at 15,000 feet and survive!! Or complete a bungy without the need for an anaesthetic! Growing up one dreams and imagines what their future will be like and what they would like to achieve, to attend the greatest sporting events in the world, carve out a successful career and family life, watch their beloved team win a competition, make loads of money, lead a happy life are all but some of peoples goals/dreams. One of my goals/dreams was to travel the world with my mates and to see the most beautiful places in the world and experience the different cultures and people. Since leaving Ireland we have managed to go some way to achieving that goal. Our dreams are no longer confined to our sleep, everyday we wake up living out our dreams.

Back to the grassroots of the blog. Today we were invited to a fry up in Dave and Claire’s new gaf in Christchurch, a nice apartment near town. We bought some supplies and met Dave outside ‘The Bog’ from where he escorted us to his lush apartment. We chatted, watched Home & Away and gobbled down Dave’s fine fry up. Yum Yum!! To bring back the glory days in the Bish we headed to the park for a kick about. Of course the kick-about didn’t entertain us long enough and we wanted more competition so we played 2 on 2 with conor safeguarding the goals. After a series of games; involving numerous spectacular goals such as bicycles, scissor kicks, half volleys and headers in the belting heat; we chill-laxed in the shade. We returned to Dave’s gaf to grab a glass of fluid and say our goodbyes. Great to meet an auld Bish head.

The evening was spent on the net sorting out a few things for Sydney, checking up on home and downloading Prison Break. After being amazed at another excellent instalment of Prison Break we dined in a beautiful Indian to discuss and debate in detail each scene in the episode. Can’t wait for next weeks episode already!

Tomorrow we depart for Sydney and inside I’m sad to be leaving New Zealand but excited about the next leg of the journey and what lays in store across the Tasman Sea.

Kia Ora (It is life)

Tom