Trip Down Under

So I haven't updated my blog for a while..

I promised myself to do a trip in Australia after my graduation, whether with friends, a boyfriend or alone. So the day came that I packed my moms old backpack and left little Belgium. My travel gave me a lot of  “life experience”, knowledge, friends, two little sisters, great stories, memorable memories, love, muscles and I even gained 15kg! How good is that.

The East coast and Uluru

The first month in Australia I travelled along the east coast, together with 5 other Belgian guys. This is the typical backpacker track in Australia, all along the east coast you find people of all nationalities. It was good for me to get into the ‘travel spirit’. Cause to be honest, I was really scared and I missed home like I never did before. It felt like my “Big Dream” was just a Big Mistake. As soon as I left the guys in Cairns I felt more free. I felt like Belgium was totally gone, everything that reminded me of home was gone.

Two days later I Left for Uluru, together with a Belgian (French) guy, a German guy and an Irish girl we got into a car and drove. We drove for 3-5 hours a day straight. It was extremely hot, all we saw was desert, that didn’t seem to change. But I loved it. This roadtrip was what I had been dreaming off! Thomas used to say, now you see the REAL AUSTRALIA, and he was right. No other hipster backpackers, just a car, nature and us. We saw an Emu mom with her little kids, a sort of Hugh eagle, all sort of lizards, and even a wild dingo that was sniffing at our tent.
Aoife the Irish girl became one of my best’s friends. She convinced me to join her to Melbourne. Originally I was supposed to go to Darwin. But soon I discovered, Plans Always Change!

Melbourne

We discovered couch surfing and ended in a student house in Preston. There we met Jess, Cori and Mic. All through our stay in Melbourne we stayed in touch. After a long search for work, I got hired as an Au pair. My stay with the Rubin family was great. I had to take care of two little girls, Indi and Nina, who became more my little sisters then kids I had to look after. Michelle and Dave treated me like their own child. I got spoiled with delicious salami, and donuts and all other delicious food that I actually missed allot on my travels! I got to use their car, I still had all my freedom and most of all I was loved.

I could not have wished for a better place to stay.

I really love Melbourne. It is a city where I could defiantly live. I come from the countryside in Belgium. But I loved Melbourne. So cultural, so much to do, to see, … Aoife and me stayed in touch and used to go out every weekend. Meet up at the beach in the afternoons, went to discover new bars and coffee places…

I stayed four months in Melbourne and I would love to go back soon.

New Zealand

Aoife asked me to join her to New Zealand. It was on my list to see, the land of the Lord of the Rings, ofcourse I had to see it. So I did. In January I left my lovely family and joined aoife in Auckland. We bought a car, which we called Black Beauty and she became our new home. We lived for two months in our little car. 

We travelled from the North island to the South island. After awhile we got some travel companions, two German boys, Valentin and Jo. We all got along well and were same minded. We We saw the Waitomo Caves, we walked in Mordor, we joined the ‘Sevens’, we fell from the sky, we surfed, we saw the golden bay, we saw sea lions, seals, penguins, we joined a farmers family and brought little lambs to the butcher,…

Besides the beautiful scenery’s, the most memorable thing to me are the wild flowers. New Zealand is full with colour. It’s so beautiful, unbelievable. We all split in Dunedin. I met my Belgian schoolmate Thijs and together we hitch hiked to Christchurch and few out to Sydney. 

 I miss my travel in new Zealand, I’ll never be as free as I was there. Driving the car wherever we wanted to go. Eating our bowl of cereal in the morning with the sunrise. Aoife used to say “this is the life”. I understand her now.

Bundaberg

I enjoyed Sydney for a week. But I had to think about my second year visa. Time to do some farm work. I got a really good offer in Bundaberg, a good hostel, with a good pay rate and most of all a lot of work. I said my goodbyes to Thijs and left. It took 26 hours on a bus. Finally I arrived. And things didn’t seem right. The hostel was a scam.. the work was horrible, underpaid, it was pure slavery,.. and the Australian government doesn’t give a f*ck.. that’s nice..

After a lot off fights with the hostel manager, I got hired with one of the best farms in Bundy, a lot of hours and the highest pay rate (20$/hour) which was less then the minimum wage.. BUT it was also the most horrible job. We had to plant, weed, cut and pack sweet potatoes, I created muscles that I didn’t know I had in my body. . I realized my Australian dream was just an other illusion. As soon as you go more land inwards, away from the cities and coast, there is were you meet sexists, racists, I felt like I was in the American movies, the ones about the black slavery. For real,… how we backpackers got used to do the dirty work?! We needed to break our backs with 20 kgs of trays every second, we had to stand in a chemical shower because the potatoes came out to dirty, we had to plant for 3 hours without water in the heating sun, while supervisors are calling you names, shouting cause you are ‘too slow’, I even got comments on what I wore, I mean I’m in a farm, not a fashion show,..  Unbelievable, where are the human rights? I felt worse for the Asians. They never argued, said no, and they were even happy with 5 dollars a day,… the worst thing is, you HAVE to do it to gain your second year visa,… Australia is not as good as it seems.

But the people from the hostel were so amazing, we were with 8 girls in the room, and it didn’t take long before we were the Puttana’s di Bunda (the Bundy Bitches) the whole house was one family. There were heaps of Italians, loads of English, some French and even one Belgian! Some people used to steal food (since we didn’t earn shit) and so we used to have big pizza parties, pasta for everyone. They even went to the fields to pick some magic mushrooms. We used to go out in this shitty pub called Central, it took our minds of our horrible lifes, we all helped each other trough the days. Some of them became really good friends, so I met Mathilde, an other graphic designer who did the same sweet potato work then me, we used to have fun together at the packing shed. But it didn’t take long before the split us.  I wish I had more time to get to know her even better. Amongst the Italians there was one, one who managed to steal my heart. I wasn’t looking for this, but it happened. He had a different job then me, less hours. So every evening when I came home after 12 hours of work, this wonderful guy had some diner ready for me. Because of his food I fell in love. After our 3 months of farm work continued our travels.

Asia

Alberto and I went to Asia, Thailand was our first stop. We travelled from south to north. We stayed in guesthouses, discovered a lot of cute little places, markets,… we even discovered that in Bangkok there are pigs and Leguana’s  living among the people. We did have some culture shocks. We saw bear claws in some sort of water and you could drink it,… We did see a lot of museums in Bangkok and I actually liked a lot of the art. Thailand left a good impression Thai people are so nice and friendly! And the food, MMHH MHH, delicious. Alberto forced me to try all the food, and I did, and most of the time I liked it! The only problem we had was that our bodies were not used to it,.. no further details necessary. We did boat rips, saw heaps of temples, got blessed by some monks, saw monkeys, touched an elephant, rode in the crazy traffic, enjoyed some hotwater springs, got chased by crazy dogs, hired a motorbike and rode the 800 curves to Pai,… 

We took a boat of 2 days to Laos, we ended in Luang Prabang. I loved that city, so lovely cute, relaxed,.. and French foooood! I got really tired of the fried rice and noodle soup. We went to see some great waterfalls, I felt like I was in some sort of movie. Unbelievable great waterfalls, only too bad they are becoming a real tourist attraction and the people are destroying the natural environment to make it a resort/paradise for tourists. We saw this several times in Laos. Everywhere they ask money, at every entrance and everywhere there are little attractions, like elephant rides, a sky walk, little restaurants on the water,… it’s really sad.

The highlight in Cambodia was of course Siem Reap. With the beautiful temples of Ankor wat. We spend two days discovering the area. We ate awesome Kmher food, but to bad I didn’t get the chance to try crocodile. After our awesome trip here, we took a bus to Sihanoukville, were Alberto could be at the beach again. There he learned me to eat lobster, or at least a sort of lobster. Every 5 minutes Cambodian women came by with fresh lobsters and squids. But there was also 20 woman every 10 seconds asking for a massage, a manicure or pedicure, if we wanted bracelets, SO ANNOYING! The Cambodian people only see you for a tourist with money. And that’s a shame. I didn’t like the Cambodian hospitality. For Alberto’s Birthday we took a trip to Koh Rong Saloem, booked 3 nights on the island. As soon as we enter we saw those beautiful little houses on the beach, with nice beds and showers. When we saw our African hut, we were so disappointed. Our hut was not on the beach, but pretty much in the jungle, it was made of bamboo and leaves, and the bed was a wooden plank with some dirty old foam mattress. I was so scared for bedbugs! But then okey, we didn’t pay too much, and you know, this is the backpacking way. It didn’t take long for me to hate the island. It was cold, rainy (our first real rain in all our trip), sand flies were eating me alive,… and Alberto was sick. So sick he couldn’t go away from the ‘resort’. We stayed two nights and decided to go back to Thailand. 

After our last two weeks in Thailand Alberto and I had to say goodbye, our year of travelling came to the end. It was a hard goodbye, after being 5 months together 24/7. It wasn’t only hard to say goodbye to this lovely guy, but also my dream had come to an end. 

Home

My travel was finished. I don’t know what I will be like, being back home. I’ll go back to study and see what comes next. But most of all I can’t look back with any regret.
I definitely got the travel bug and can’t wait for my next adventure.