Our journey continues after our impromptu cruise to the south Pacific. After we had disembarked the ship, we jumped on the fast ferry back to Manly. We were told to keep seated because it was very choppy out there. After 10 minutes or so, we wondered what all the fuss was about, it was nearly flat calm out there, but then came the time to cross the unprotected section, where the bay meets the pacific. Now that was a crazy ride! We had to go straight towards the open ocean into the huge waves. Everyone onboard, even those who seemed to be regular travellers, went silent and held on as we rose and fell between the swell. An expertly timed turn was thrown in and we rode the swell back in, it felt as though we were trying to climb a hill for a while, until one wave slowly passed and we were seemingly sailing face down into the bay. All very dramatic for what was probably 3 minutes of excitement, I’m just glad we weren’t on the slow ferry, which we passed coming the other direction and looked horrendous.

Finally off the seas for the foreseeable future, we were back at Simon and Aline’s for one more night. Back in the comfort of our van, without any swaying in the night, well maybe a little bit after some wine and whiskey with dinner. I made a beef stew after walking Alfie to the butchers in the pouring rain and we slept very well ahead of the next leg of the journey.

Now we really couldn’t afford the cruise we went on, even with all the discounts, upgrades and freebies, so it was time to get cracking and get to work again. We had planned on taking our time heading up the pacific highway to Brisbane, but with a few minus dollars in our bank account, we said goodbye to Simon, Aline, Amelie, Bully and Alfie and  high tailed it up the east coast.

As mentioned, we met a lovely couple onboard the ‘Pearl’, Daryl and Rob, who had invited us to stay with them and happened to live halfway between Sydney and Brisbane, about a 6 hour drive to the lovely town of Bellingen. It was time to put Horace through his paces again anyway, and the drive there wasn’t too bad, arriving in the dark as per and then being led up a very hilly, dirt track through a forest by Rob who led the way in the car in front after meeting us on the main road, conjuring up images of every horror movie, maybe Rob & Daryl had befriended us on the ship and were leading us to their house of horrors!!!!

Of course they hadn’t, we were actually invited to stay with their son Harry, wife Megan and lovely kids Pallas & Louis. Rob & Daryl had actually hired their own house out to a group of dancers for the weekend as there was a festival in town, so we were kindly invited for dinner, spent some time playing with the kids and reading them Louis some books, after each one, he’d grab the next one and ask “wanna read it?” I think this was more of a rhetorical question!

We stayed in the van in the beautiful countryside and woke up to see where we actually were in the world. Surrounded by hills, with a banana plantation on the hillside, it was beautifully secluded, a great place to live. Rob had me up bright and early as promised, to take me on a hilly run. Shock to the system!!! Megan joined us and it was a lovely first 3km downhill to the main road, but what goes down must come back up, via some extra hills. But it did feel good to finally get up early and do some exercise, maybe this could be the start of something!?

As I said, there was a festival in town, so we were shown around by Rob & Daryl, the town of Bellingen had a great vibe to it, very bohemian, lots of hemp and funky colours, very chilled out and a nice small town vibe, everyone seemed to know Rob & Daryl, being a bus driver and teacher in town and all. We didn’t have very long to enjoy the day, but enough time to know that we will definitely be back in the future and highly recommend anyone who is heading up the east coast to turn off and go and see what this great little town has to offer.

 

Once I had found a local beer to take with me, we hit the road again, another 5 hours up the coast to Cleveland, just south east of Brisbane. We crossed into the state of Queensland en route and made it to Jan & Gray’s just in time for dinner. We had made arrangements to go and stay with them for a while, so we could do some work and replenish our empty bank accounts. When we pulled up the address we had, we wondered if we were in the right place, or if the whole house was theirs. It was and what a beautiful house it is. I hadn’t seen my Godfather Graham or Jan and kids Josh (24) Louis (22) and Abbie (20) for 4 years, since they left England to come and live out here. So it was a great reunion, we had a delicious dinner out in the garden (still mid-winter but its a lot warmer this far north) drank lots of wine and caught up. We spent that night sleeping in the camper inside the garage, but after a stifling night with not much air, we would move inside the following day.

The next day, we went out on the family boat which is parked at the bottom of the garden off their pontoon. We just went for a quick spin to Peel Island and anchored up off shore to enjoy a beer in the afternoon sun. The water was lovely and clear, but a little bit chilly to go for a swim. I’m sure it was probably warmer than the Channel at anytime of year though. Once we were back on land again we moved our stuff inside and set our bedroom up in the family media room, with a cinema screen at the bottom of the bed, this was going to be alright.

On the Monday, it was time to find a job each, I had decided to be a labourer, so needed to do an online qualification in health & safety, whilst Evie was looking for a job in a cafe of restaurant. We had looked around in town the previous evening for anywhere advertising, hoping to find somewhere as close as possible, so we could limit how far we had to travel. I managed to get an interview at a construction agency firm in Brisbane, so it was a start and would hopefully provide work eventually. I also had poked my head into a building site just at the end of the road to see if they needed any labourers and had left my details with the foreman.

The following day I had a phone call from the building site I had enquired at, asking if I could help them out for 3 days, to do some waterproofing, of course I snapped up the opportunity, although it meant pulling my finger out to finish the online h&s course, which also involved getting documents signed by a justice of the peace at the local courthouse, I also had a phone assessment before they passed me off. Next up, they had employed me as a subcontractor, which after a bit of research, meant I need to get my own ‘Australian Business Number’ so that I was self-employed. Check and check, the final task was to get suited and booted so I was presentable for my first day on the building site. A night time trip to a huge Bunnings warehouse was in order, a place I know well after going there so much during the construction of Horace II.

I bought my hard hat, hi-vis and steel toe-capped boots and had an early night, ready for my first 6:30am start. They do things early over here, mainly to escape the afternoon heat. Evie was a day behind me in finding a job, but was hot in my heels and on the Wednesday was offered a trial shift at the local Ice-cream shop ‘Jeppos’. Of course she did, only Evie could manage to walk straight into a job in the most tempting place in town.

My first day was pretty straight forward. I was working on a high-rise building site, only 6 floors, but they had lost their team of waterproofers and so I had come along at the right time to the rescue. Myself and another newbie ‘John’ had been employed for 3 days to paint a coat of primer and 2 coats of waterproof membrane on every external door and window reveal on level 1. A simple job, just a slightly tedious one, but I was more than happy, the money was good and it was a 4 minute walk from the house, what more could I ask for.

Tea break was at 9:30am, which they call ‘Smoke-O’ here for some reason and that I learned quickly after a few laughs from the convicts when I asked if it was tea time. Most of the ‘tradies’ were off site by  2:30 or 3pm, but the site was open until 5 and as a ‘subbie’ I could work until then if I wanted, so why not, the more hours, the more money. Day 1 was great and much the same as day 2. I had timed it very well for day 3 though, as they were celebrating the last concrete pour for the top floor and the site was shutting at 12 for a BBQ and a few beers. We finished our waterproofing task just in time, and downed tools at 12 for a proper Aussie ‘barbie’ of steak, pork, ‘snags’ and prawns, washed down with plenty of beer. The site had to close as soon as the first beer was opened you see, for health and safety reasons.

I had, thankfully been asked to come back on Monday, for another day but they couldn’t promise me how many days I would be needed for, so still kept my options open and had that interview lined up for the following week, just in case. Meanwhile, Evie had, had her first day at the Ice-Cream store and had loved it. The money wasn’t great, but it was very local, only a 4 minute cycle into town. She would need to learn how to make decent coffee though and become one of their baristas, but she had time to practice, before being unleashed completely to the public. She was serving the ice-cream and running the food orders out, we went to see her in action on the Saturday morning, It was nice to see her smiley face, happily serving ice-cream and coffees and I have to give her credit, she hardly ate any ice-cream during her time there (or so she says).

That weekend, after a hard first week at work, well not hard actually, but we had retired after we left Glen Ewin, so it was more of a shock to the system. We mainly chilled out, explored the town of Cleveland and Jan hosted a great dinner party where we met their good friends Stuart and Marion, who were from Edinburgh but had moved out to Oz around the same time as the Gellatly’s. More wine was drank and we had a great night. It was nice to have a chilled weekend in good company, in a lovely part of Australia.

The following days work extended to a full week and although it was still open ended, I was trying my best to show my extensive skills I had on offer, great at sweeping up, awesome at digging holes, if you can p**s you can paint, veteran grinder, and competitor at the labourers olympics in a past life with the machine Mike Cordoba. So they were happy to keep me on and actually delegate to the other labourers. All the money I was earning too, was going straight into my bank account, tax-free which was a great help, maybe not so much when it comes time to do a tax return, but for now we’re not complaining.

Evie’s time at ‘Jeppo’s’ wasn’t going quite so swimmingly. She had found out that the manager, was a head case and impossible to work with, as the week went on, the stories of how she managed the shop and Evie  got worse, she was rude to customers, even ruder to my darling Evie and to top it off, the money really wasn’t good enough, under minimum wage, even though it was cash. Hmmm maybe thats why they only accept cash payments there, less paper trail, but who are we to judge.

I was actually warned by John at work about the manager at ‘Jeppo’s’ but had decided not to tell Evie and instead see if what he said was true. It all was and after a week there, I told Evie to leave. After all we are on holiday, we don’t have time to be treated like crap and paid even worse for the pleasure. She had also been called a few days earlier with another job offer locally, so she called them and got herself a trial which she would go to during her 2 hour lunch break the following day.

Of course she got the job at ‘Wray Organics’ in their cafe and marched happily into ‘Jeppo’s’ to tell them the good news. The owner ‘Jeppo’ said he understood, as he knew how the manager treated his staff and would confront her the following day, Evie’s last day. Well that sounded like an interesting shift, after Jeppos confronted the manager, she had a hissy-fit and stormed out in anger, blaming Evie for the whole thing, well we all know Evie’s a nasty piece of work don’t we, so the manager was probably in the right to leave in disgust. Evie had to pick up the pieces and ended up doing another half shift on the Saturday to help but now that they were without a manager. But after ‘Jeppo’ had tried to beg Evie to stay, now that she didn’t have to work with the manager, Evie eventually explained to him that the money he paid was awful and she wouldn’t be back, you go girl, she even came home with a litre of ice-cream.

All this was for the best as it turned out, Evie’s time at ‘Wray’s’ was great and she made some great friends there, so i’ll let her tell you more about that:

“Thank goodness I was able to work at Wray organic whilst I was in Cleveland. I originally had to turn the opportunity down as I had my other job, but when that went down the pan along with Diane – Marion and the girls still needed help to cover holidays and it was for the duration of our stay in Cleveland which was amazing!

I started pretty much the following day after telling Diane where to stick it and instantly loved the girls! They showed me the ropes and we laughed – a lot! They are just as weird as me, which is great!! Really feel as though I have made life long friends, along with gaining weight as the brownies are insane!

Lots of hilarious memories – 

Myra wanting me to ask her out and twirking at almost every moment.

Mik for being Celia the sassy celiac and for always being inappropriate with vegetables.

Grace for sharing my love for the juicing fridge and for having firm eyes.

Brooke for Borat sneezes, mutual love of chocolate milkshake and your growing problem with moscato.

Ponie for going to Malaysia not Thailand, for making a hot damn salad and for being my full cream milk buddy.

Ali’s hugs and her ‘is this almond milk?’ every time!

Antonia and her giggles.

Emma with her Italy chats and happy hellos every morning.

Caitlin and Estelle for being great cafe closers and always making me laugh.

And a shout out to Wolf Man – for just being who you are……

Love you all and can’t wait to see everyone at Christmas!”

Well I was trying to keep the managers name at ‘Jeppo’s’ anonymous, but it seems the nasty Evie wanted to let the cat out of the bag!

After my week of asking whether or not they would need me the next day, I eventually just started showing up at 6:30 each day and they kept on finding me work to do, I ended up being there for 9 weeks in the end, and didn’t leave until the final floor was painted, the roof was on, I had swept every floor ten times, done a bit of carpentry, dug a few holes, inhaled half a ton of dust, befriended a Syrian, some Portuguese’s, Kenyan Kelvin, lots of Aussies, even some Kiwis. I ended up working 50 hours a week, even 56 one week, just gave them my weekly invoice and they paid me what I asked. I really enjoyed it, and the view from the roof was fantastic, I could see Jan & Grays house just over the water, I waved to Evie down there one day, the long days didn’t even seem that bad, they flew by and I spent most of my time listening to podcasts on every random subject possible, mostly the ‘Stuff you should know’ podcast which is amazing and I highly recommend. I even listened to a whole audiobook in 2 days one week, during a particularly tedious task. And to top it off they offered to employ me anytime I wanted to come back, which is nice to know.

During our time at Jan & Grays we moved into Abbie’s room whilst she went on a whistlestop tour of Europe, We were in Josh’s room whilst he went to ‘meet the parents’ of his girlfriend over in Indonesia, who he lived with in Hong King and then we were neck to the media room. Evie had a great time with her girly company, Jan and Abbie, and got on with the boys like a house on fire, especially Louis. We all worked most days, Louis is a nurse, Abbie works in financial planning in the big city, Gray works as a surveyor, half from home, half in the city, Josh is a chef (and a very good one at that, was nice to live with him) Jan is in property management and a full time mum to the family, which was extended by two during our time at their home, which we are eternally grateful. We ate as a family every night, sometimes it was all 7 of us, sometimes someone was away or a few people were away, sometimes we were out, I had a cinema date with Louis most weeks and sometimes Evie was invited.

We can’t thank all of them enough for having us to stay, whilst we worked to build up our funds ready for our onward journey, there’s still a lot of Australia to see and it was a massive help to have somewhere to stay for a while with a lovely family. I have obviously known them all for the whole of my life and they have known my parents for a lot longer, but they didn’t know Evie and treated her like part of their family, we had a great time and are looking forward to coming back at Christmas to look after Fred the cat whilst they all head back to Blighty.

It wasn’t all work during our time in Cleveland, we of course had our weekends, we visited Byron Bay, I went on a lads day fishing, I played golf, Evie went wedding dress shopping and we drank lots of wine, but thats one for another blog.