I'm doing "wwoof" near to Bundaberg

Well, this is the coldest year in the recent 10 years. Faint, couldn't get a good harvest job. So I went wwoofing with Kathryn and her friend.

I worked in an organic farm 4 to 6 hours a day. Pick strawberry, pick chicken eggs, feed chickens, weeding, cut dead banana leaves, collect bush and burn them, etc.. Pretty healthy, pretty good experience.

Hope can earn enough money before going home.

I'm in Bundaberg

Well, I'm in Bundaberg 360 km north to Brisbane. Looking for a job.

I'm living in a working hostel, which would arrange accommodation, transportation, and jobs for me. Sounds good? Bundaberg is a big town with many farms nearby. However, it rained too much in the last two months and this year is much colder than last year. So even there are good jobs, (keep this in mind: there are more backpackers), I got a pretty lame job: zucchini picking, by contract. I went to work on this Monday and Tuesday, totally 5 hours. What the fcuk. And then I got two days off. Faint.

It grows on the ground, you have to "bend" to pick them. My waist~~~


After searching in this Chinese backpackers' forum. I got some information.
Article 1, article 2, article 3.
You have to have a luck goddess standing behind you such that to get a good job.

Well, well, bad news. I'm very poor now and still three months before go home. Where could I get a good job? Show me the money!

Memory in Perth

After leaving Gavin's friends' house, I restarted my alone journey again. You know what? It's first June, 6/1, 2008.06.01. Huh, you don't get it? Let me make it straight, the date means I've been in Australia for half a year, wow!



Black swan is the symbol mark of Perth.


Prior to come to Western Australia, I heard that in Perth the cost of living is lower and the wages is higher than east coast. And I knew that many Taiwanese chose Perth as their first stop in Australia. However, I found that the prices of hostels here aren't cheaper. Some Taiwanese backpackers who had stayed here for more than half a year told me it's true in 2007 but the pay for the accommodation increased in 2008. Are you kidding me? Why am I such a unlucky guy?

Perth was still warm, but would get colder.


I found out two hostels which are cheap enough, around 110~120 AUD per week. But the quality is pretty bad. One is smelly and crowded and the other one has not-good atmosphere(noisy at night, turn off shouting washing machine at will if he's sleeping, etc..)

I met two Swedish girls here, great. And so many Taiwanese here.

Well, put that aside, let's go to the state library and enjoy free internet.


I started my job search in Perth. I had worked for a long time in Echuca and saved some. Then Tasmania, Melbourne, Great Ocean Road, Adelaide, road trips, etc.. I gotta find a job soon or no bread to chew. I met Amanda again who told me where are the job agencies, thank you. Do you remember Amanda, one of the girls who traveled with me in Tasmania.


I suppose that Amanda and Joyce are in New Zealand now, enjoy it.

Hey, such a coincidence. I met Mai, Tomoyo, and Daisukei again in Perth. Tomoyo went to Japan to celebrate her friend's wedding and then was back in Perth.




Well well well...in 2008, so many of my friends got married, and I went to none of the wedding parties. *cough*, sorry, *cougg*, really sorry.


There is a kangaroo reserve(actually wallaby). You can touch and feed them.




This was my first time to be so close to a wallaby's claw.


Luckily, I got a job after 10 days. As you already knew, it's a pig abattoir, bloody slaughter. See ya.

Road trip from Adelaide to Perth

Road trip from Adelaide to Perth, 5/28~5/31.

After staying in Adelaide for several days, Gavin and Philip would give me a lift to Perth. They just finished the short-term work in South Australia. And I? Honestly, I'd done nothing here. Uploaded photos, wrote blogs, went to the museum and art gallery, and walked on the neat and tidy streets of this regular city laid out by William Light.


Light's Vision
"The reason that led me to fix Adelaide where it is I do not expect to be generally understood or calmly judged of at present. My enemies, however, by disputing their validity in every particular, have done me the good service of fixing the whole of the responsibility upon me. I am perfectly willing to bear it; and I leave it to posterity, and not to them, to decide whether I am entitled to praise or to blame."

(I compressed those sentences into one: I don't care what you think about.)

Without saying, I met some backpackers. a South Korean guy, taught me something about Korean language; a Mali negro (located in west Africa), interested in the chopsticks used by me (I lost them here); a Scottish girl, crochetd her first scarf and would travel to the Great Ocean Road; a New Zealand guy, had many requirements of a hostel; a Dutch boy, went three-day tour in Ululu; a drunk Australian teenager, disturbed me on Rundle mall stree at deep night; etc.. Well, that's enough.



The road trip from Adelaide to Perth is about 2900km, it was:
1. 5/28, I would go from Adelaide to Port Augusta by myself, and meet Gavin and Philip there. About 400km.
2. From Port Augusta to Perth is about 2500km, divided by three is about 800km for each day. 5/29 arrived Border Village which is rightly near to the border line between South Australia and Western Australia. 5/30 arrived Southern Cross. 5/31 arrived Perth.
So totally it would take me 4 days.

Most of the time we just sit in the car blankly staring outside, and driving driving driving. On the road, actually honestly really, there's nothing to be seen. We listened to the music, played a game "I spied with my little eyes", watched the invariable scenes of two sides, and ate all fruit because they couldn't be carried pass the border.



Roughly after every three or four hundred kilometers, you could see a small village. I don't remember whether I saw any village whilst near to the border. Maybe they're just places with a petrol station and a grocery selling everying including food, newspaper, potato chips, and drinks. I wondered if there are people living in such a remote savage terrain but who knows.


Philip went to whale watching by this aircraft.


There are no hostels on the road, I mean, no kitch to cook meal. So we had lunch and dinner in a roadhouse or in a bar.



Border Village, which is in the middle of Adelaide and Perth, and at the same time it's extraordinarily far away from cites. And...the petrol here is most expensive.


Western Australian has more strict rules about quarantine. Especially you have to drop any fruit.


We crossed Nullarbor Plain but couldn't see the famous nymph(naked woman) running.


We drove on the longest straight road and also it's the most boring segment so far.


So Philip boot up the laptop computer and watched a film.


On the road, occassionally there were dead animals, kangaroos, emus, other birds. (no photos, I don't make you spew.)


However the most shocking thing to me was that someone tried to cross the Nullarbor Plain by "bicycle". What an idiot, oops, I mean, what a great activity. (Sorry, no photos of those brave cyclists.) You can get a certificate after crossing(except by airplane).



We arrived Southern Cross, lived in a country bar. I learnt a new word here: skimpy. Well, in this bar, there's a waitress wearing underwear only. Woo. I had a good sleep here while Gavin and Philip went to a party with local residents.


Original plan was to arrive Perth at daytime. But Gavin returned back to the accommodation "afternoon", so we arrived the destination of this road trip at night. Lived in a house rent by their friends. That's amazing, they'd known each other since childhood and now gathered together in Aussie where is so distant from the homeland.

Finally we were there, Perth.