Point Cartwright, a turtle, a parrot, a sea slug and some fish

Point Cartwright is a nature reserve/surf spot/lighthouse/viewpoint on the other side of the Mooloolah river. We trekked over there (9 miles there and back) the long way: we didn't fancy swimming across the rock walls due to boats going in and out and the potential for Bull Sharks (which are known to frequent river estuaries). Anyway, turns out Point Cartwright is a pretty cool place.

We took the GoPro and took some pretty cool footage of a turtle that Charlotte spotted. This did involve me having to clamber down the side of the rock wall down some rocks that probably weren't entirely stable, but the results are pretty good. I will upload a video when I find fast internet (footage takes forever to upload here) but here are a few screengrabs:

 Some fish

 The turtle that I nearly fell in trying to film

 A lorikeet

 A massive parrot

 The same turtle, underwater

 Some more fish

 This is a sea slug. It chased and tried to eat the camera.

 Turtles have to breath as well y'know

Job problems, the sea and Buderim Forest Park

So on Tuesday this week I popped by work to collect my rota for this week, only to find the restaurant shut with a sign saying "Closed until further notice". 

Not cool

Intrigued I rang the owner to find out they'd closed as she was selling the business and sorry, but I no longer have a job. After a week. Cut to 24 hours later, one jobseeking post on Gumtree, and I'm offered a trial at a pizza restaurant on the sea front. Another 24 hours on and I've bagged myself a new job! In hindsight it was actually a good thing to happen as it restarted my 6 months at one employer time limit! Looks like I'm here until at least the end of March! Incidentally, the restaurant I worked in before had given a girl a job the day before they shut down. That must have stung.

The new place is super busy, I'm a barman once again and the work is full on from start to finish. The time goes super quickly and again its awesome hours so I can spend the daytime surfing/exploring/skating/BBQ-ing/swimming.

With regards to swimming, Charlotte is literally terrified of everything in the Australian sea. So  I was massively impressed when she just dove on in.

After thoroughly inspecting the water for any signs of movement...

Today we went to Buderim which is about a 15 minute drive inland, it's here where we went on a rainforest walk. I managed to play in a waterfall which almost certainly had leeches/snakes in it.

 There were no Aussie animals to play with unfortunately. WE WILL FIND THOSE KOALAS SOON. It was about a 45 minute walk from the top to the bottom and it was a really good experience of the nature that was so close to home. 

We got the bus back down to Maroochydore where we stopped by to pick up some stuff for dinner. At home then made the extremely long trek of 1 minute across the road to the outdoor BBQ. I whacked on a couple of kangaroo burgers and watched them sizzle as the sun was setting. Great way to end a Sunday.

It's still going really well for us on the sunshine coast. We're finding living costs and food prices are pretty reasonable. There are 3 bed houses with pools here for £210,000 and sea front apartments from about £160,000. 

Settled in the Sunshine Coast

Settled in the Sunshine Coast

So we have been in Australia for 10 days. The first few days were hectic - running around like crazy people doing house viewings, printing off and handing in CV's to jobs, getting shopping and food done. 

Things have calmed down a significantly now and we have settled into life on the Sunshine Coast. The first necessity of moving anywhere was:

The House

We moved into a house on Tuesday 16th September. It's right next to the main surf spot and between the 2 main beaches (Alex Beach and Mooloolaba Beach), only one road back from the sea. The house is beautiful:

The best bit? The rent. At only £276 each (£469 for both of us), it's costing far, far less than any hostel, hotel or tourist park, and much less than my old flat in Batheaston did! AND this one has a pool, garage and sun-soaked front yard....

The next necessity was:

THE JOB

After vast amounts of self-selling and distributing covering letters, CV's, emails and phone calls (We must have applied to around 30-35 jobs between us), I got a call to come into a very upmarket, multiple award-winning bar and restaurant for a trial shift. Competing against 2 others, the trial shift went well and I managed to get myself 30 hours a week bartending (at $20 per hour. Which is around £12.63. Which is vastly more than my hourly teaching wage....). After my first shift, Charlotte then got a call from the same bar to trial as a waitress. This is happening tonight (Friday 19th September) and hopefully it goes well!

So now one (hopefully soon both) of us has a job, and a house. That's fairly stable and pretty fantastic considering we managed to secure both by day 7 of being in Australia, barely time for the jetlag to go (incidentally I am still waking up at ridiculous times). 

There were still a few things needed to complete the move:

VITAL NECESSITIES

Transport was arranged pretty promptly, 2 bikes for a grand total of $100 (1 free from a garage clear-out, another new from K-Mart)

And lastly, but certainly not least, there is no point in living in a prime surf spot without the necessary tools to do so. And now I'm earning, my first wages helped procure this beauty:

So now all that is left is for Charlotte to get a job, and then everything will be completely and totally perfect.

VIDEO: Whale Watching in Mooloolaba on Whale One

Whale One: Whale Watching

We went on the Whale One Whale Watching cruise at Mooloolaba, QLD, and saw some awesome humpback whales. Make sure you watch towards the end of the video - a large mother humpback charges at the boat before flipping under it at the last second! 

Ironman 70.3 triathlon - Sunshine Coast

On Sunday the 14th September, the Ironman triathlon came to the Sunshine Coast. It consisted of a 1.9km ocean swim, a 90km cycle ride and a 21.1 km run. It started really early (5.45am-ish) so we only caught the run as we walked up Alex Headland to Mooloolaba. We did find ourselves at the finish line as several peope were finishing and we watched people of all walks of life and various levels of fitness stagger through the timing gates; the vast majority were not athletes and it is a hugely impressive achievement. Unfortunately one competitor sadly suffered a heart attack in the swim stage and did not survive, a tragic occassion in what should have beena momentous life event, but the event went on as normal. Here are a few photos:

VIDEO: The journey and arrival into Australia!

Arriving in Australia

Arriving in Australia

So Sunday came and Charlotte and I were whisked up to Heathrow by our parents ready to board our flight at 5:00pm. I arrived first, followed by Charlotte roughly 45 minutes later. In those 45 minutes, I made an error and decided to try and check in by myself. 

Apparently I managed to change the seats we'd booked while doing so without realising it.

Charlotte arrived, swore never to let me check in by myself again, got the seating fixed and then we went through security!

At this point I was a bit spontaneous. For 2 days prior to takeoff, I'd been doing a study in which I was paid £250 to let scientists cut into my legs. I had £250 in cash and I was sat around waiting in duty-free. 

So yeah. That happened.

While waiting around with a couple of hours to kill, Charlotte and I went to find somewhere to charge it up. We found a charging spot and managed to engage in conversation with a hilarious South African traveller/photographer (Stephen) who had pretty much every bit of GoPro accessory kit you could buy on his person at the time and one of the best accents I've ever heard. We chatted to him for a while about surf, sharks, travelling,  sharks, working on boats, sharks and various other aquatic based topics before we had to board.

Our plane was with Cathy Pacific. No, I had never heard of them before either. Turns out they are amazing. The flights were half-full, leaving the premium economy seats (the ones with the extra legroom over the wings) free as no-one was willing to pay extra for them. I hobbled into the plane and politely asked that really I could do with stretching my wounded legs during the flight. The flight attendant immedietly offered us the extra legroom seats. This happened on both our first flight (12 hours) and out second (8 hours). A whole row of 4 seats with tonnes of space, to ourselves. It. Was. Awesome.

I'm 6'2 with size 13/14 feet and room left to spare

Now the last time we flew to Oz, it was with Emirates. They fed us once over the space of 23 hours and we had to ask for water which was provided in tiny cups. Cathy Pacific, on the other hand, fed us almost continuously and were constantly up and down with the free drinks trolleys. Free snacks, drinks and massive meals meant that we were sat down for hours and hours, mostly eating. Definitely my best flight experience. 

Now we landed into Brisbane at 11.50pm-ish and thought we could walk to our booked hotel (Ibis budget). This is where the first of a few problems were encountered. We immedietly got lost and ended up walking around sprinklers before ending up in the police station. Not wanting to accidentally wander blindly into the nearby Brisbane River (shark infested), we turned back and booked a taxi. Turns out that was a great idea - the hotel was over an hours walk away IF you knew the way.  When we got to the hotel, the key we'd been provided didn't work. We had to wake up the night porter (who really probably should have been awake, being a night porter) to get in. Upon getting to our room, we found out just how madly jet lagged we were when we found ourselves wide-awake at 5am.

Cut to 10:45am Tuesday morning. We're bussed back to the airport (previous walking plans having now been totally abandoned) and then shuttled up the Sunshine Highway to Mooloolaba! We arrived in the blazing sun and a video of the remainder of the journey will soon be published!

Finding Jobs in Australia

Jobsearching in Australia

Before we leave, we have been looking for part time and casual work to help fund our working holiday. In terms of success, it's been varied. There does, however, seem to be an abundance of different types of work. One of the best places we found for adverts was Indeed Australia:

There's a vast database of jobs from different sites and companies for all sorts of work and from this there have been quite a few that I've tabbed and will apply for when I arrive in Australia (or even apply before, if I find the time. Time is a premium at the moment thanks mostly to my entirely disorganised attempts at planning).

Another option is to look more locally at websites from the areas you want to visit. We're off to Maroochydore/Mooloolaba to start with and so I looked at a local site there:

This had less volume, of course, but it did seem to have more casual one-off jobs that may be used to supplement income during free time away from the main jobs you can get. Very handy and well worth bookmarking.

Let's see how successful our job hunt is, hopefully sooner rather than later!