The cutlery draw in my levels kitchen at work

I don't think I need to say anything about this

Winging it in Melbourne

I don't even like warm weather, it's crap. I also don't like knowing anyone, Completely overrated I think. So, I have taken a job in Melbourne, mostly due to the fact that the old Rand salary really doesn't go all that far in Aus and also finding a job in Brisbane was looking a little dodgy.

With little planning and even less knowledge of Melbourne I hoped on a flight to Melbourne with half of my possessions on my back and the other half in Laura's apartment in Brisbane. I had booked one night in a backpackers in town. That and some googling for places to stay was the sum total of my planning. But as I have learn, planning for the unknown is a bit of a waste of time, it generally doesn't work out as planned. So just wing it…

Problem one was to find a place to say, well, it was and is my only big problem at the moment. Found a couple of places on gumtree, made some calls and to people I have never met. Half hoping that they would have both immediate occupancy and the would want to take me in. While on the trams, I pondered this…. What a silly notion. The other thing I rapidly realised is that people's lives don't fit in with yours and the definitely don't fit in with the public transport system schedule. I think I might be over public transport now. Having had car for over a decade has made me super used to being able to go where I want when I want, without having to worry about what weather will be thrown my way. As it so happens, my lack of research in melbourne failed to inform me, not too surprisingly, that the weather in Melbourne is pretty horrible. A feature I didn't know existed in Aus. I guess all I have ever know about Melbourne is sport I have watched in the summer, when it is generally hot as hell.

The second thing I am realising is that technology has made us crap at being people and even worse at planning. It has become ever to easy to call the person 5 minutes before they are to meet you (even though they might be at your door at the time of call) to tell them you are going to be two hours late. Something that happened to me twice yesterday, which is annoying when you have a car, know where you are and come go do something and come back later however when using a public transport system you are new to in a city you are basically lost it can prove both off pissing and entertaining.

At the end of weekend I had been to see three house, even though I had been to two of them twice. Got stuck in a couple of rain storms and only been moderately, it would have been horribly if it were not for the same technologies I was complaining about 5 seconds ago. And hey I'm sitting on a train writing this, public transport is not that bad.. It sure is a lot better than sitting in the M1 for 2 hours because some guy has run out of petrol.

Needless to say I am still homeless but I do have some potential places to stay. And very kindly friends who moved to Melbourne over 20 years ago have taken me it while I look for a place. Which leads me onto my first day of work and the transport adventure that followed.

Well the first day of work was, well, like most first days at work… Nothing to exciting there. If I feel passionate about work at any point I'll blog about it.

The travel adventure that followed however was fun. I had organised to meet the other housemates of one of the places I had seen the day before, I had also organised to go to Geelong to stay with the above mentioned friends from years back. Geelong is an hours train ride out of Melbourne. I had left my bag (all 18kgs of it) back at the backpackers, which is a good 2km in the opposite direction to the place I needed to go to. The station being right across the road from work made doing this whole trip a little upsetting. So, with not much time I set off to beat the tram back to the backpackers. Running in work clothes in not all that fun, I then walked with two bags now back (about 1km) to get the tram to St Klida. Work shoes are not designed for hiking. Got on the full tram, trams are not designed for people with lots of stuff. Got off the tram and walked to the place (another 1.5km or so), once again work shoes are not good for hiking. Had a somewhat awkward meet of the other housemates, not sure I am going to live there, Neil is not designed for social skills. Walked back to the tram station, you get the point. And missed the early train to Geelong by 30 seconds thank to having my mind blown by the station. Spent the next 40 minutes waiting and following hour travel on the internet chatting to people back home.

So I'm still undecided if technology has made us better or worse humans. While being able to catch up with friends at family back home makes me happy, sitting next to tons of people in silence makes me feel cold and alone. I wonder is they are really that into their phones or are wondering, as I am, what the other people are doing on their pieces of technology and wishing they could talk to someone. Maybe I should see if they are tweeting about what they think I am doing….

Later peeps off to work now.

Goolang Easter weekend

Facebook was useful. (Although I can see it becoming more useful with living on the other side of the world.) You would think that Brisbane would have very few river , even less paddlers and no whitewater clubs. Well that is where you would be wrong. Although it is not exactly new zealand there is some paddling around and as it turns out two whitewater clubs, both related to universitys.
So thanks to playak and facebook I met some guys from a bush walking club at Griffith University (GRUBS). And it just so happend that they where planning to do some paddling at goolang creek over the easter weekend. Not having much else to do and pretty excited to get into a boat again it decided that I should give it a go. Dee, Lauran and myself piled into Laura’s car along with piles of stuff and headed down with the easter traffic to goolang.
I didn’t expect much from the goolang and didn’t get much. Goolang creek is the outflow of a small hydro sceme, so it constantly flows. Albiet with not that much water. The Common Wealth Games slalom course was built on the river so there are a few man made drops providing some action and a few small shallow play features. The biggest rapid on the section is a shallow grade 3 that provides much entertainment and injuries thanks to the number of novice paddlers around. Laura and Dee enjoyed the river. I was a great river for Dee as it was her first time in a kayak on a river.
Sean, one of te guys from GRUBS, hooked me up with some other local paddlers who were planning on during on off the other sections, The Little Murry and Mynboidia. I can’t say I was anything other than super impressed. The put in reminded me of the midlands in Natal and the river in general was a lot like the upper sabie, with some really nice drops, slides and rapids. It was a little low but still a lot more fun that I was expecting. Another great part of the river was the scenery, it flows though some amazing rain forest and there is loads of birds and reptile life along the river. It was also awesome to paddle with a buch of crappy gear (i looked like a massive gumby) and a bunch of new people on new unknown river.
We all paddled the goolang again on Sunday. This time Laura got tennis court (the grade 3) wrong and lost some skin and Dee flipped in a shallow rapid and lost part of her tooth. Apart from that we all had a pretty good time.
Another highlight of the trips was cooking snags (which are sausages) over a fire with a stick. The slags jokes just never got old….

Brisbane v1.0

Well this post is a little late, I’m in Melbourne now. But I’ll get to that.
So I landed in Brisbane on the 17th March and was picked up, after a super long flight, by Laura. At first Brisbane seemed like a first world version of durban to me. But after living there for some time it really grew on me. Unfortunately I haven’t found job there yet, so hence I’m in Melbourne.
The thing I like most about brisbane is the people. They are all pretty fit and outgoing, when running in the morning or evening you see a whole whach load of people running, cycling, walking, or doing some strange power boxing thing. It is really cool, I think I could see myself living there.
Hopefully I will have a camera sometime soon so I can add photos