backpacker – Page 2 – One Chance to See the World

Back to being jobless

It’s a weird feeling when you become jobless. Not that I didn’t see this coming, it was inevitable on the 417 Working Holiday Visa. But still, not having an income on the other side of the world is pretty daunting and leaves us backpackers pretty vulnerable if we’re not careful.

I took this shot today in the Botanic Gardens, I was convinced a storm was about to hit however nothing materialised. It is my third day into unemployment however I am not pursuing any more work in Brisbane. I arrive into Melbourne on the 16th, and feel very fortunate that I work in a great company that has contacted properties in Melbourne to possibly take me on as an employee. So far I have been in contact with two potential employers and feel a lot more relaxed about not having a job before I fly.

It isn’t always this straight forward. But hospitality (hotels in particular) has proven a great industry for transferring or simply finding work around the world. Since I have been in the industry I have worked in six hotels in three countries and each and every one of these hotels uses the same operating system. A system called Opera. So even if I am not familiar with a hotel or city, the fact that I don’t need as much training to jump straight into a shift has proven invaluable, and I will see if this helps me find employment in Melbourne.

This will also be the case for many backpackers, or people looking to start a new life abroad. Looking for work? Stick to what you know! Even if it is just short term to keep you going. Ironically I told myself that when I arrived in Australia I wouldn’t work another hotel shift again. But then I remembered I was terrible at saving and needed to find work immediately in Sydney to keep me stable. And within a few days I was straight back into the only industry I know. But if it wasn’t for my time in Sydney I wouldn’t have found work in Brisbane so fast. And because of both of these jobs I have had contact with teams in Melbourne. So despite wanting to venture outside of hotels once I arrived down under, I am so glad I stayed in the industry. It has been incredible fun so far.

Six months is all we get to work with one company, unless someone is willing to sponsor us. I won’t be able to get sponsored, however I am looking forward to going home after two years away. I will of course keep you updated with my job situation and could potentially be working right in the CBD, meaning I get to experience the heart of Melbourne and have great public transport to visit it’s great suburbs. I have heard they are great from fellow bloggers and I will for sure be looking for recommendations closer to the time.

Oh, and I heard back from Sydney Police today regarding needing me as a witness for a trial, they are still unsure if I need to go as of yet. So I may be posting from Sydney later this month for a day or two, but this could also not happen.

But now that I have heard from employers in Melbourne, I feel a lot more relaxed not working. If I can hit the ground running that will be ideal, and I am sure my blog will benefit too. The less time looking for work the better and the sooner I can prioritise one thing…

TRAVEL!

Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!

New to this site? Click here to visit my A bout My Blog section and Travel Diary

Follow me @samest89 on Instagram and @octstw on Twitter

Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.

Cheers!

Sam

Five years on WordPress and one week left in Brisbane

A pretty emotional week! It has only really hit me in the last couple of days that I won’t be in Brisbane much longer. My last shift is Friday and soon I will need to make my way to Melbourne. I am currently looking for work and I hope to get into work as soon as I land there.

And today, I got a notification that I have been on WordPress for FIVE YEARS. That makes my blog’s birthday 06/03/14. Happy Birthday to onechancetoseetheworld.com. Not that it was called this back then, but my blog in general. It has changed style as it ages.

A lot changes in five years. Some for the better and some for worse. But the worst we have experienced should fuel us to see the better moving forward. Time doesn’t stop so we may as well try to make it amazing. If we live our lives with the aim of having the best next five years we can, it will be. Even if we have downfalls, they won’t hit us as hard as they could have if we went in with no motivation to have a more enriched life.

The world gives us constant reminders of this. Yesterday we heard the tragic news that The Prodigy frontman Keith Flint died by suicide. Very sad news, he was in a band my whole family loved and to be honest, I really can’t think of anyone that doesn’t like them or at least respect them.

I now feel very lucky to have seen them twice live, in possibly the most brutal crowds I have ever been in. Isle of Wight Festival 2015, literally five minutes into the gig my shoe popped off and was never seen again in the mania. I had to hop on one foot as it got stamped on about a dozen times, and I wasn’t able to walk properly for two weeks after getting back home. Great memories. They certainly knew how to put on a show and I will remember the crowd as much as I will the performance. You have to be great at what you do to get people that pumped up.

In fact, I would like to elaborate on this in my next post as festivals just put me in a good mood. Writing about them probably will too.

So I will be heading to Melbourne soon, expect plenty of posts from this great city as I finally give it the exploration it deserves. Will it be my favourite place in Australia? Who knows. But I really am looking forward to updating you all as I travel and discover.

I am not saying goodbye to Brisbane yet, but sadly it is coming. But not for another week, and maybe a liiiiitle longer. I expect to be in Melbourne around mid march.

As always, I will keep you updated!

Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!

New to this site? Click here to visit my A bout My Blog section and Travel Diary

Follow me @samest89 on Instagram and @octstw on Twitter

Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.

Cheers!

Sam

A last minute ticket

I woke up with a text from a colleague asking if I wanted to go and see them live in Brisbane last night. I was an hour late responding so thought the opportunity had slipped however I got a reply that it was mine. Score.

I though the band must have been staying at my hotel, however I don’t think they were. So for that reason I need to actually find out how we got them… this is still a mystery to me.

Chad messed up at one point and it was pretty funny. Chad Kroeger is the lead singer and I remember their album Silver Side Up was one I fell in love with as a kid. You know the one with the hit single How You Remind Me on it. They of course played this and a few other that I knew, and some that I didn’t. I haven’t listened to their newer stuff as much as that album.

What the band seem to do live is drink. I remember this from their gig in Newcastle, UK too, funnily enough another time I received a free ticket through hotel work. At one point last night they even drank from a fans shoe.

Apologies for the vertical filming, I did it for Instagram.

And the problem with this is when you drink, you let some things slip. Earlier in the gig Chad told the crowd that he has accidentally said the wrong city once when saying hello to the crowd, and that it was right here in Brisbane. He said that he couldn’t wait to party in Sydney before realising that he was actually not in Sydney.

‘I can’t wait to party in Sydney!

*Ryan looks over to him with angry eyes*

hoooowever tonight we are in Brisbane!’

Apparently it went something like that. And tonight he made the same mistake hilariously, claiming that ‘Brisbane and Melbourne will be jealous with how many songs and antics are going on tonight’ before again remembering he was in Brisbane and Sydney was almost 1000km away. The crowd laughed and jokingly booed, but it wasn’t a big deal.

It was a good gig, and today my head hurts. Too many beers, but I am fine with this. That’s what a rock gig is all about. Overpriced beer.

Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!

New to this site? Click here to visit my A bout My Blog section and Travel Diary

Follow me @samest89 on Instagram and @octstw on Twitter

Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.

Happy blogging,

Sam

My one regret in Brisbane

Brisbane is the second city I have lived in after Sydney. From my experience in Sydney I took into account a couple of things and implemented them in Brisbane for my six months here.

One of them was choosing to stay in a hostel instead of a hotel.

Sydney is huge, and despite the commute to work not being too much hassle I met a few people that decided to stay in hostels right in the CBD. This would have cut my travel time drastically and allowed me a bit more time to blog too. I often feel that in a larger city it can seem harder to socialise as everyone is so rushed and in such big crowds, it is harder to walk by a friend in the street and stop for a quick catch up. Because I was blogging so frequently and in an apartment outside the city, I feel I didn’t socialise. I didn’t mind that too much though as this was the six months that really boosted my blogging. However being in a hostel would have been fun and travelling to work would have been a breeze.

It was only after Sydney that I stayed in my first hostel. It was during my 88 days farmwork and I did it because, well, I had to. But this showed me how fun hostels can be and how easy it is to make friends there. Friends I will no doubt keep in contact with for years to come.

And with this in mind I booked a hostel in Brisbane close to work. I have stayed here for the duration of my time in the city and despite being a sacrifice in privacy, it gives me more freedom to travel around. If I want to go to Sydney for a week I just pack and leave. No rent to pay! But although I have had an amazing time in Brisbane, I feel I may have benefited from doing this a little differently.

In Sydney I should have stayed in a hostel. And in Brisbane I should have stayed in an apartment. It is cool I have tried both living styles out however I did them the wrong way round. This is my friends pool in her apartment complex, it is really close to the city and I work among the highrises.

Brisbane is small enough to get a decent place close to the city. And commute times are short. I could probably walk to work from here if I wanted to, or grab one of those really convenient Lime Scooters to get me there.

I only have a month left here, so I am sticking to my guns and seeing it out in a hostel. Don’t get me wrong I have loved it and made some great friends here, and my two minute walk to work has given me so much more time to write. But I just wanted to share my thoughts on this with you as my time here comes to an end and I look back at my time in Brissy.

Now, time to think of my options for Melbourne in March…

Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!

New to this site? Click here to visit my A bout My Blog section

Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diary or follow me @samest89 on Instagram

Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.

Happy blogging,

Sam

This is Australia

What I’ve noticed over here in the land of the creepy is that these spiders really don’t move all that much. It’s really helped my phobia diminish to the point that I can get up pretty close and get a decent shot. Not too close though.

There was a time when I was walking through a relatives garden late at night in Sydney and I almost walked face first into a web like this. If it wasn’t for my iPhone torch I would have been peeling it off my face frantically like Jim Carrey in The Mask. That’s not a job I want to have before bed.

But saying that I love late night walks and seeing these webs. The spiders are pretty damn impressive and if you keep a look out, they are there and they seem happy to stay there for the shot.

If you want to see them, that is…

This is Australia

There was a time when I was walking through a relatives garden late at night in Sydney and I almost walked face first into a web like this. If it wasn’t for my iPhone torch I would have been peeling it off my face franrically like Jim Carey in The Mask. That’s not a job I want to have before bed.

But saying that I love late night walks and seeing these webs. The spiders are pretty damn impressive and if you keep a look out, they are there and they seem happy to stay there for the shot.

If you want to see them, that is…

Wake up with full charge

When I say that, I am not referring to ourselves. I did sleep way longer than I should have today but yesterday was an unexpected and long day at work. I’m pretty charged again.

But no, I’m talking about phones.

As I am currently sleeping on the top bunk of a hostel bed, I have limited access to a charger overnight. This means I really need to charge before I sleep if I don’t want my phone to die overnight and miss that alarm call. Last night I didn’t do that, and my phone was on it’s last legs by noon.

As I was walking down to South Bank (a walk I love to take to wake me up before I blog) I walked right by a lizard that was perfectly positioned for a great shot. Now there are lizards running about here all the time, but this one was perched on the wall right on the footpath, staring right at me with the posture of a lizard that I can only imagine would adopt at a lizard modelling shoot. I was listening to music which probably didn’t help my battery life and as soon as I swiped up to activate the camera, blackness. That dreaded iPhone spinning wheel of death emerged on the screen and this shot was wasted.

Now I am using it as a reminder that I should have full charge, like all the time. Not because I am addicted to my phone (I am though a little bit, but I have to for my blog) but because you never know what is around the corner. What may seem like the routine walk to work or the shops or whatever it may be could one day provide the footage of a lifetime. The world is full of crazy and crazy shit happens everyday. I know this was just a lizard, but next time I don’t want to miss out on something that I might regret. Something potentially amazing.

Photography requires quick thinking at times, and taking plenty of shots is good practice for this. But the first step, get that phone or camera charged.

So instead, here is another picture I took of a lizard in the same spot some months ago. I think I named him Kevin in an earlier post.

Now get that charge to 100%!

Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!

New to this site? Click here to visit my A bout My Blog section

Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diary or follow me @samest89 on Instagram

Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.

Happy blogging,

Sam

Drum and space

Skyline in Brisbane, QLD taken from Eat Street food market.

Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!

New to this site? Click here to visit my A bout My Blog section

Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diary

Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.

Happy blogging,

Sam

Q1: The tallest building in Australia

The Gold Coast is just an hour south of Brisbane, and with the city being so close in a country so big it would probably take up half the moon, we went for a quick day trip there.

It took us a little longer as after the journey down via train we needed a tram to take us to the beach. We found Surfers Paradise on the map and headed for it.

Immediately we found a nice looking Persian restaurant and went straight in. By this point we built up a pretty big hunger so we didn’t mess around looking for somewhere, but it was a great choice.

I love food.

From the table we had this view. You see this building here? That’s the building in the title of the post, the Q1 Tower.

This was (until 2011) the tallest residential tower in the world and currently holds the title of tallest in Australia, as well as the Southern Hemisphere.

So, we went up it.

The views are incredible. Taller than the Chryslter Building in NYC, the whole city can be seen from here and the spire can be seen from over 200km away.

More cool facts on this can be seen over at SkyPoint website.

Before I relaxed and wanted to show my face…

A little while later. No alcohol needed!

We actually ended up staying for a lot longer than anticipated, until sunset in fact. The reason for this I will tell in my next post as this is a part one of two.

I decided to take shots of the view from the different stages of the day, from afternoon to sunset.

One of the buildings here was the first high rise in the Gold Coast, and it isn’t one of the more obvious ones… I’ll save that for the next post too!

I love the shadow in the shot above. From here you can truly appreciate it and realise how much affect the buildings have on the ground below. It’s also beautiful to watch the surrounding city enter darkness and the night lights give it a second life.

And as day turned to night, we called it a day up here. And what a place to welcome in the night.

Thank you to everyone reading this post, what do you think of the tower and views? Are you a fan of heights or is this a no-go area?

Speak to you all soon!

Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!

New to this site? Click here to visit my A bout My Blog section

Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diary or follow me over on Instagram

Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.

Happy blogging,

Sam

That time between checking out and waiting for a flight…

It’s a weird time. No hotel room to go back to after noon, and you cannot commit to too much as you know you need to make it to the airport. Our flight to Brisbane isn’t until 8.20pm, so we have a lot of time to kill.

Thankfully though, the hotel kindly gave us tickets to see Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United in the National Basketball League at 4pm, which will keep us occupied for a while. Something different too.

But this time after check out is always a little sad, the trip coming to an end and every little walk along the coast and every cold drink at the bar is the last here. Maybe the last on this trip, maybe the last ever. But this is more motivation than ever to try to live a life that allows for as many of these trips as possible, as we won’t be around to see the world forever.

If we can live a life that sees us going to new places, trying new foods, speaking to new and interesting people, then life is good.

Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!

New to this site? Click here to visit my A bout My Blog section

Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diary or follow me over on Instagram

Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.

Happy blogging,

Sam