Aussies do it better

Aussies do it better.  Here are a few things Americans should grab hold of and hang on to!

The GAP year –

The concept of a “gap year” began in the UK in the1960’s.  Students would take time to travel, volunteer, or go on a working holiday abroad.  To this day, many students from Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand take a full year off after high school before heading to university or after university before entering the work force.  They are encouraged to have fun, travel their own country, or to go overseas backpacking with their friends.  Students sometimes participate in cultural immersion and language study programs.  Why don’t we encourage our youth to do this in America?  When I looked up gap year on Wikipedia, it actually stated that the practice of taking a year off in the US remains the exception.  Traveling is such a great experience, especially when it is extended travel.  You learn how to adapt, how to be flexible, how to interact with and appreciate other cultures, and how to be independent.  In Australia, there is an industry surrounding the gap year that helps backpackers and youth organize trips and provides budget travel options.  Let’s bring this opportunity to students in the US!  There are plenty of great places to see in our own country.

Extended leave –

Many moons ago, it took travelers 6 weeks to sail by boat from Australia to England when traveling home to see family.  The British government granted people the time of 13 weeks to travel back to the UK, spend a week with their family, and then to travel 6 weeks back to Australia.  This concept is still around today and Australians get to take extended leave following 10 years of service at their place of employment.  So that is a total of 13 weeks paid vacation after working at the same job for 10 years.  And they can take this time every 10 years.  You also continue to accrue time off when you are on leave getting paid!  Do you think your employer would go for this?

Grey nomads –

Australians are retiring early and becoming grey nomads.  They are over the age of 50, and they often sell most of their possessions.  Grey nomads buy a campervan or motor home, and take off to see their own country.  I can understand why!  Australia sure has a lot to see and lots of roads to travel down.  We have snowbirds and retirees in the US too, but wouldn’t it be great to retire at 50???

Campervan Road Trip!

We survived our first campervan road trip!  What an awesome adventure.  At first, I couldn’t believe our luck when we were given the Run DMC Wicked campervan. But, we definitely felt silly when the Run DMC novelty wore off and realized quickly that our campervan was not the best smelling vehicle on the road.  We only picked up only 2 FM radio stations, packed zero CD’s, and did not have cell phone reception most of the time.  So windows down and music NOT up, we headed west to the Atherton Tablelands.

It’s tricky, it’s tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, here we go!

The Tablelands are filled with farms and lots of places to stop and sample.   Food tour!  First stop was Jaques Coffee Plantation.  Jaques grew up on a coffee plantation in Tanzania and he and his wife relocated to Australia due to political instability with only $2000 to their name in the 1980's.  After years of financial struggles and difficulties, Jaques and his 25,000 coffee trees prevailed producing award winning roasts.  The plantation has a very interesting history especially if you're like me and love coffee.  If you're interested, here's a link to read more online. http://www.jaquescoffee.com.au/plantation/  We ordered iced coffee at Jaques' and were surprised when given a coffee milkshake.  It was a cold creamy coffee with a scoop of ice cream plopped on top with cream and a chocolate covered espresso bean.  This was not your standard Starbucks grande iced coffee with milk people!

Jaques' coffee plantation

The Bean Machine

Orange tree on the plantation

Awesome flower bush

Next stop, the Peanut Place.  Time to go nuts. 

Tourist shot

Sweet, savory, hot, cold, or just plain old peanuts ...

The day was slipping away, so it was time to set up camp at Lake Tinaroo.  I'm not going to lie, I am not the most seasoned camper, so this activity made me pretty uncomfortable. Every time I've gone camping (maybe twice), the boys of the group have taken care of all the details.  We pulled up to the lake and set up shop for the night.  

Lake Tinaroo 

Don't worry, we forgot the flashlight but not the beverages.

Camping was, well... interesting.  It got dark so fast and we really had no supplies to make a fire.  Four hours, lots of eucalyptus branches, and about 100 matches later, we got our fire going.  Now if a TV show was recording our trip, this camping episode would be most watched.  It was dark and creepy and at one point we were both standing on stumps with a fire poker shoveling rocks at a very friendly possum.  It had no fear and kept coming closer and closer all night just to keep us on our toes.  

I'm sure you are wondering about the luxury sleeping accommodations in our home on wheels.  It was smelly, hot, and just plain uncomfortable.  My feet were touching the seat up front, I woke up almost every hour, and we kept thinking irrational thoughts.  What if the possum gets in the window? What if the campervan rolls into the lake?  What if an alligator attacks me when I go to the bathroom?  At 3 in the morning, I just couldn't take it anymore and decided to sleep in shot gun up front to be on the look out.  

Lake at night

I am embarrassed to admit what happened next. We are such girls.  Instead of driving on to the next location, we drove back to Cairns to shower.  Yes, we drove back home to shower before we went camping again.  Second best shower of my life.  First best was after shoveling manure on that farm.  Second best following my night in a sweat box.

Clean, happy, and driving on the wrong side of the road!

I got over my fear of driving and figured out how to navigate Australia's highways.  The drive was breathtaking as we went north on Cook highway.  

If you go to Australia, please promise me to take the time to drive the Queensland coast.  

Daintree Rainforest was unbelievable to see. The air in the rainforest is 99% pure air and just smells clean.  In 2 hectometers of the rainforest, there are more tree species than all of North America or Europe.  And where the rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef is the ONLY place in the world where 2 World Heritage spots meet – Rainforest to Reef.

Rainforest canopy

Rainforest walk

We got an amazing recommendation to camp at Cape Tribulation on the beach.  If you go to Cape Tribulation, check out this place.   www.capetribcamping.com.au.  The site was clean and welcoming, there was a camp fire going when we arrived, and it was just a short walk through the rainforest to get  to Coconut Beach.  What a spectacular sight.  Forest up to the ocean, undeveloped, huge, beautiful beach.  There are not too many days that I actually feel like I am all the way around the world in Australia, but here it really hit me that I am in an amazing country far, far away.  Random/sad fact: They don't make s'mores in Australia.  How can you have a camp fire without s'mores?

Happy Hour at Coconut Beach

Tarzan swing!

Found my Aussie hammock spot :)

Coconut Beach and Cape Tribulation

Night 2 in the campervan was much better.  I don't know if it was the ocean air or pure exhaustion, but I made it through.  For some reason, I was wide awake at 5 AM.  Perfect timing to catch the sunrise.

Sunrise Coconut Beach

Sunrise Cape Tribulation

Cape Tribulation is the point where the sealed road stops and a four-wheel drive unsealed road begins heading north to Cooktown.  The road is often closed in the wet season due to flooding.  We did take Run DMC on the unsealed road for a few minutes before we realized something was not quite right and turned around.  Most of the land north of Cape Tribulation belongs to the Aboriginal people.

Coconut Beach

Rainforest to Reef

Time to head back to Cairns, but not before meeting Miss Doris!  You just never know what you are going to see in Australia.  We stopped for a coffee at a cafe and the barista asked if we wanted to watch them feed a crocodile.  Of course we do!

Doris!

I don't think I am going swimming for awhile.

Final stop: Mossman Gorge.   

Mossman River

After this road trip, I am ready to take Australia on and to keep driving all the way through this country.  The landscapes here are so dramatic and beautiful.  It's hard to put into words and pictures the beauty of Queensland.  I hope it stays that way for generations so that everyone can experience it.

Fitzroy Island

What a great day.  We took a day trip to tropical Fitzroy Island.  It is part of the Great Barrier Reef and about 45 minutes by ferry from Cairns.  I just loved this place and took a ton of pics.

Approaching Fitzroy

I can't get over the turquoise water!

Fun Fact: the island was actually converted into a military base during WW II to protect Australia's mainland from invasion.  So there were great walking trails formed with lots of protection look outs.  I took a hike to the lighthouse and the summit for some amazing views. Gorgeous!

Fitzroy Lighthouse

Self pic - the trail was empty on the way up.

At the Summit!

You had to take a short hike through the rainforest to get to Nudey Beach (sorry to disappoint, no nudeys were present).  There was very little sand and the beach was made up of coral.  It actually sounded like breaking glass each time you took a step.  Not the most relaxing to sun bathe on or walk on! 

Ouch

Nudey Beach

 One of the best parts of the day was seeing 5-6 dolphins swimming by just off the shore .  It was awesome.  There were a ton of butterflies flying around too... boy those little guys are hard to photograph!

Finished the day with a bev... :)

Feeling happy and blessed.

Looking for work...

On Sunday, our fantastic Airbnb host, Kay, took us off the tourist track for a hike to Glacier Rock.  The view looks over the Coral Sea and Whitfield Range.  We also saw the Kuranda Train go by – this one is for you Dad.  Happy Father’s Day! You're the best.

Dad's dream job

Pam and I have both been busy preparing for interviews and doing work research the last couple days so there's not a lot of exciting news to report.  I’m thankful I’ve had a positive response when applying for speech therapy jobs because my ego was crushed when Baskin Robbins said they wouldn’t hire me. I just LOVE my ice cream, and it would be a dream come true to scoop cookies ‘n cream each day!  I bet I could make a pretty great milkshake  given the chance.  But they were looking for a “junior” staff member who is still in school to fill the position.  I guess I should be grateful they said no and saved me from some extra ice cream weight.  You know how it goes…  One scoop for you, three for me…

I really hoped to try a different type of job, but as I said before, it has been harder than I thought.  I’ve decided though I should be thankful for my education and go along with whatever opportunities come my way.  Pediatric private practice speech pathology jobs have been advertised all over the country because of a new government program.  Families who have children diagnosed with autism, cerebral palsy, hearing impairments, etc. are given $12,000 to use up through the age of 7 for therapies and equipment.  They are allowed to use up to $6000 per one year, so this has caused the referral rates in private practice to rise.  Great news for me!  I’ve started my paperwork for an Australian speech license and might be teaching these little ones some American slang soon!

Trinity Beach, Queensland

Today was a good day.  I got my hair done which made me feel like myself again.  I felt guilty at first spending the money, but the outcome made me soooo happy.  I also stepped in dog crap.  The made me soooo not happy.  In my past experience, stepping in this has been a sign of good times, so I guess I have some good luck coming my way.  We checked out Trinity Beach, and I heard from several speech therapy clinics where I had sent my resume.  Awesome.

Cairns

“Winter” in Cairns is pretty great.  It has been sunny and 78 each day.  That makes me feel happy because I’m missing out on summer at home in the US.   I know how lucky I am to be in Australia, but it looks like everyone is having so much fun in the BBQ and summer pics posted on Facebook! Enjoy.

Cairns has about 200,000 people, so it is pretty small.  It’s a tourist center where people stay to see the Reef and local rainforests.  Cairns has a lot of shops and a great Esplanade where you can walk along the water.   It is surrounded by mountains and rainforest and has a tropical feel.  The city is not directly on a beach, but they’ve made a lagoon to swim in and have a great waterfront area that is well used.  There are two free exercise classes offered daily to the public on the Esplanade.  The mayor here is committed to making an active lifestyle possible for everyone.  No more $18 a session Pilates classes for this girl.  It is free on Wednesday mornings!  But who am I kidding? 6 AM is a bit too early for me.  Maybe next week.

Monday was the Queen’s birthday so we decided to celebrate her at the beach.  There are 4-5 beaches just north of Cairns.  You can bus it there or drive in about 20 minutes.  We went to Palm Cove and it was heaven to be back in the sand instead of  wearing gum boats trudging through muddy fields.  This is a great time of year to be in Northern Queensland because there are deadly jellyfish or “stingers” that head to this area in the summer months making the beaches unsafe for swimming.  Rumor has it there are crocs, too.   I just popped my toes in the water to play it safe.

Palm Cove

Palm Cove

Back to the beach! Hurray.

Tuesday was back to reality day.  It was time to start looking for work since we’d like to stay here for a few months.  We can enjoy nice “winter” weather and see tons of National Parks and beautiful beaches in the area.   I would love to park it for a few months, unpack the suitcase, and get familiar with a town.  We’ve been in Australia now for 6 weeks and traveling since Portland for 7 weeks total.  A little down time would good for the soul.

How did the job hunt go?  I’ll sum it up in one word.  Rejection.  We went from cafe to store to cafe in search of job, but no one was hiring “backpackers.”  Even though we don’t consider ourselves to be backpackers, we are lumped into that category since we are looking for seasonal work.   Several temp job agencies have also told us they are not hiring workers with our visa.   There are fruit picking opportunities available, but we are trying our hardest to not have to end up back in the fields just yet.  My ego can’t handle the thought right now.

So, I sent out my resume to lots of different jobs from receptionist, to Montessori school aid, and even for some pediatric speech jobs in other cities.   I’m feeling a little discouraged, but I've got to stay hopeful something will come along.

On Wednesday, we visited the  Cairns Botanical Gardens and Mt. Whitfield Conservation Park.  I really needed some time away from the job hunt, so we went bush walking through the rainforest.  Great day.

Cairns Airport and Coral Sea

Where's Pam-O? Hint.  Look for the fluorescent shoe strings.

View of Coral Sea on hike