Well well well, it really has come to an end of an era for me on my travels…
I’ve finally left Tully, my home for more than 5 months, leaving the very familiar four walls of Mullins and the 7 other unfortunate souls that shared them with me behind. I’ve had many, many great times in Tully – from the thrills and freedom of driving a quad bike around a 1,000 acre farm to the wild balcony parties and having dance-offs in the bar. I’ll miss all the fantastic people that I’ve come to know really well very much too, especially my roommates and the smiling Koreans. I’m sure I’ll be seeing at least a couple of them along the way somewhere again. I’ll also miss working with (and picking up mannerisms from) some real Aussie characters such as my supervisor Maralyn and the JCB driver Rusty along with the others from Bolinda Estates.
Last night in Rafters Party Bar...
Despite the obvious, constant and slightly dire need for money, it seems to be a very fitting time for me to leave actually, as almost all of the ‘Golden Oldies’ who’ve been around for months are leaving in the next two weeks – most of them because they’ve got their big fat tax back! Although I was one of the first to start the process of claiming it back I’ll be one of the last to receive my money, which is annoying. When the online program said I wasn’t entitled to anything the first time I applied, within five minutes there must have been 8 people all leaning over my shoulder
Bye bye Bolinda
offering helpful but conflicting advice, ranging from “Oh ****, they must have changed it so we don’t get any back!” to “Stuff it mate, just go pay an accountant”. Somehow this episode left me with a reputation of being a tax expert, and so people have been kidnapping me and waking me up to ask questions non-stop for days, which itself has resulted in me almost becoming one! Oh well, at least the money will eventually arrive…
Which’ll be handy to say the least, as all of my original plans of saving loads of money and heading up to Darwin have been thrown out the window and instead I’m flying 3,500km over to Perth, SW Australia to catch up with Sooji (Susie).
Some very interested cows... 
)
The plan at the moment is to work again for a while after a nice break, before heading up the spectacular west coast, which I’m really looking forward to. It has the reputation of having the most beautiful scenery in Australia – which has got to be good!
For now though I’m sat in Ayers Rock Airport – where its bloody freezing! 6 degrees! Made all the colder by the sad fact that all my clothes other than the shorts and T-shirt I’m wearing are in the hold of a 717. Simply not called for. )
Apart from being extremely cold I’m also very, very tired, as I did an unusually hard three days work laying down new irrigation piping etc in the sun all day for my last week. Then straight after work yesterday it was off to the bar for farewell beers, which was good fun, on to the Greyhound up to Cairns last night, sitting around in the Airport for hours for an early flight and on to here. I lose two hours heading so far west too, so Ill probably go around 45h without sleep – which considering I was ready to drop straight after work is no easy feat. It should all be worth it though as Sooji has no clue I’m coming (she doesn’t expect me until August) , so I’m just going to turn up on her door! ) Can’t wait….
Bye bye Tropical North (Cairns)
….haha I wish I’d taken a picture of her face when she opened the door! I finally made it to the hostel towards evening time and wandered around Perth with an address in my hand to find Sooji’s house. A guy let me in to the community (wishing me luck when he saw the roses) and so I was able to knock on her door whilst on the phone… priceless!
First impressions of Perth are good, it seems a nice city although cold and wet at the moment which’ll take some getting used to. I’ll put up another post soon when I’ve had a chance to explore, take care, Al
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