The Young Woman and the Sea

Leaving Longreach

    That small town girl part of me that made herself known while I was in Longreach is dead. The city girl that has always existed asserted her dominance and killed the idiot. She got drunk at 3am (because the bars were still open) then got in a taxi that ran small town girl over (because taxis were available 24 hours) before having a celebratory kebab (because she could get food after 8pm at night). Do not get me wrong, small town girl had her fun but was ultimately weakened from the lack of city conveniences and seeing the same few hundred people day in and day out – city girl knows how to live and live well.

   By the time I was finally leaving Longreach I was humming 'The Great Escape' tune. It was not that I had a bad time but by the last month I had snapped; tourist season was over due to the temperature hitting 40 degrees every day so work was mind numbingly quiet most of the time; there was nothing to do other than go out drinking and since there was only one pub in town worth going to even drunkenness was becoming mundane; I missed the sea, buildings taller than two storeys and night life that did not involve nocturnal animals. I loved the people and the small town atmosphere but there was a whole big world out there that was calling me – I finally understood the true meaning of all those Journey songs.

Whitehaven Beach

   The bus to the coast took 9 hours and travelled along the Tropic of Capricorn to Rockhampton, a township that as far as I can tell is only there for people to stop over between fun places. Still there were mountains, Maccas and more people than I'd seen in months – it was glorious. With just a day there I hit the overnight bus up to Airlie Beach, a party resort that serves as the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. It was just what I needed. In a hostel with other backpackers, I spent my days lazing by a giant lagoon overlooking the sea and my nights drinking, dancing and on one occasion having political debates with a U.S. Republican and gay rights debates with a mid-west pastor. I may have physically pulled out some hair but it still had its merits. To see the islands themselves I booked onto a raft boat known as 'Big Fury' for a day cruise and got to sunbathe on world famous Whitehaven beach and snorkel in a shallow bay with some coral. Pure bliss.

Airlie Beach

   Just when I thought vacations could not get any better I went to Cairns. Not only was I in a proper, honest to goodness city (!) but my hostel was more fun than would be appropriate to write about on the internet and what was that other thing? Oh yeah, I visited the Great Barrier Reef! In spite of being mid-recovery from a foul case of food poisoning (added delight at having such a condition while in a hostel aka top bunk and communal toilets) it was one of the most magical days of my life. I spent the trip out to the reef huddled up at the table closest to the toilets, popping ginger tablets like they were Smarties and sipping at Vitamin Water which was the only thing I had been able to keep down for two days. Nothing was stopping me from making this trip - I was doing my first ever scuba dive, a prospect that would have filled me with a manic excitement even if I had just broken my leg and was diving into a dirty pond in Grimsby (swimming underwater was my childhood raison d'être) so I still felt like one of life's winners by diving the Barrier Reef with food poisoning. 

Christmas Cairns style

  As I sat there on the edge of the boat's diving platform, my feet dangling in the warm water and the sun shining down on me, a sort of serene calm washed over me...then I realised I was about to willingly plop myself into deep water with a tank of air strapped to my back and weights attached to my waist - actual madness. But the instructors and set up were excellent with underwater bars attached to the back of the boat to allow you to get used to the gear, underwater pressure and practice the basic skills. Then we were off! Initially I swam with my arm linked with an instructor but I was thrilled to be the first person in the group to be given the signal to take off on my own (provided I always stayed within the sight of the instructor). No amount of hyperbole would be sufficient to describe the sensation - it was beyond what I expected and the sheer diversity of the marine life was incredible. I will never be able to name pretty much anything I saw but between the dive and the afternoon snorkelling I must have spotted hundreds if not thousands of types of fish in addition to sharks, stingrays and best of all - sea turtles. One particularly giant turtle which had been nibbling on some coral on the sea bed spotted me and another diver as we worked our way down to him but rather than swim off, the turtle was a friendly fella who came up to us. One of the instructors appeared from nowhere and picked some of the spongy coral (for the record we had been explicitly told several emphatic times not to even touch the coral) and put a little bit in our hands. Well the turtle invited himself for lunch and nibbled it out of my fingers. I had to resist from actually pinching myself. 

  Unfortunately I have no photos of this part of my Aussie adventure. I came pretty close to buying an underwater camera but ultimately decided that this was one of those moments I should experience first hand without worrying about taking a picture. Besides there is no way I will ever forget that day (Under the Sea was stuck in my head for over a week) and if I do, I will be old and senile and if that's the case chances are I would have lost the photos a long time ago anyway. 

   

Unto The 'Reach

Longreach water tower.

Leaving Melbourne back in August was a huge step for me. In the space of six months I had built an entire life for myself with a great job, amazing friends and a suitably dysfunctional place to live. Like Manchester and Hanoi before it, Melbourne was one of those cities that had became a home outside of Ireland and so it was incredibly difficult to leave behind. But in addition to wanting to see more of Australia I felt like Melbourne had peaked for me and I did not want to risk tainting so many wonderful memories. However I had been saying such things for a few months so at some point people stopped taking me seriously and quietly assumed that I would find a way to live with them in Melbourne forever. Around the end of July I snapped and handed in my notice at work in an attempt to get my travelling arse in gear.

“So where's next?” “I've no idea.” “Um...is that a joke?” It was not. Quitting my job was a kick start that was failing to get me started. I did not have a plan but felt strangely calm – I had always managed to land on my feet in Australia even when I was on the verge of poverty with no job prospects, things had worked out so in some weird way I trusted the country to look after me. (It is possible that after a lifelong record of pessimism, some optimism is winning through). While I toyed with finding farm work to become eligible for a second year visa I ultimately decided to look for bar or hotel work in a small town somewhere to save up some money, try a different pace of life and see this 'bush' I had heard so much about. (Yes, you may snigger at that). So I hopped on Gumtree with the elaborate key word search of 'outback' and 'hospitality' to see what came up, figuring if I could not decide where to go I might as well let the universe do the job for me. Or in this case, the internet.

The Great Dividing Range

A number of jobs around the country came up and I applied for them all, only taking a quick glance on the map to see where they were. It was only when I started to hear back from people that I properly considered the towns they were trying to get me to come to. One location sounded great – it was only an hour's drive from the Fraser coast which conjured up fantasies of days off on the beach but upon further research I realised the town was home to about 400 people. I would never have coped. Then there were the places that seemed so incredibly isolated that were definitely beyond what I could deal with – roadhouses off by themselves in the depths of the Northern Territory, serving only long haul drivers with bad communication networks and the nearest town hundreds of kilometres away. They had all the makings of a warm weather version of The Shining, no thank you. Then came the call from Longreach, one of the bigger outback towns on the Queensland map boasting a couple of thousand residents – a Central West metropolis! The conversation was less of an interview and more of a summons: “We need someone and you sound good so come as soon as you can and bring your dancing shoes.” I was sold.

Tropic of Capricorn marker

Getting there was a lot of effort since Longreach is further inland than a small island girl like myself can fully comprehend. With flights from Melbourne nearing $800 one way, I flew to Brisbane where I boarded the Spirit of the Outback, a 24 hour train to Longreach. It was one of the best default decisions I have ever made in my life. I had paid for an economy sleeper cabin which was supposed to fit three people but thankfully I had it to myself – a glorified cupboard with triple bunk beds and a pull out basin, there was one power socket and nothing else other than a large window for my viewing pleasure. I boarded the train at night so it was not until the next morning when we were storming across the countryside that I really got to appreciate the scenery. As the train thundered through the Great Dividing Range I was treated to rolling hills covered by dense forest before emerging into an infinite flatness with only an odd hopping kangaroo or the occasional tree to break the constancy of the landscape. I had never before witnessed so much of the horizon where the pale cloudless sky skimmed along the scorched copper earth with almost no interruption. As we went further into the interior, the vegetation became sparser and what there was of it became paler, almost as if it had been bleached – this was the picture of the outback that had formed in my head; the 'vast nothingness' I had heard not nearly enough about.

One of the little 'towns' we zipped past.

For a while the train travelled alongside what appeared to be a dusty dirt track upon which I only spotted a handful of cars. This turned out to be the Capricorn Highway (it runs parallel with the Tropic of Capricorn along which my new home is situated), the main route from coastal town Rockhampton to Central West Queensland. With the train, the highway ran through towns so small we went past them in twenty seconds as they only seemed to consist of a single shop and a handful of houses. I worried what I was getting myself into, especially watching my phone signal come and go. As we neared Longreach the sun began to set and the landscape revealed the real advantage of being so bare; the one viewpoint allowed me to witness every stage of the sunset from looking ahead into the glowing orange sky, across into the violet blue and back into the darkness of fallen night – it was truly spectacular.

The sun starting to set.

Upon arriving in Longreach, my first thought was 'Is that a water tower?' It was and I immediately had a feel for a town so small and country that they had a water tower (which also happens to be its most famous landmark). Everything you need is located in what is audaciously called the town centre but is in reality half of a single street. Speaking of streets, every single one in Longreach is named after birds. How quaint can you get? For example, the pub-hotel I am working in (one of four in the entire town) takes up a block flanked by Eagle Street, Duck Street and Magpie Lane. There is also Pelican, Owl, Cockatoo, Kingfisher, Spoonbill, Stork, Cassowary, etc. The town map is a confused, misled ornithologist’s dream.

The people here are noticeably different to those elsewhere in Australia, managing to be even more easy going and laid back that their city and coastal counterparts. The people always have a smile to share and a story to tell and you get to know them quickly – after only a week here I could not go to the shops without getting at least three friendly hellos. At this point, those people who I do not know to speak to I at least recognise. News travels fast here – everyone knows everyone's business and are eager to spread it around. The men wear stetsons and the women wear plaid. These are people who can remember the first time they saw the sea although not all of them have. It is a small but bustling community with great warmth and spirit.

Longreach Train Station

The biggest shock about Longreach for me is that I love it. Do not panic - I am not sick nor have I been abducted by aliens and replaced with a drone; I am still and always will be a city slicker as I could not imagine settling down to live in a place so small. I get bored and restless although admittedly that can happen to me most places. There are days that the only thing that gets me through is planning my trip down the Queensland coast with an itinerary full of beaches, nightclubs and fellow backpackers and yes, I dream of getting food after 9.30pm and going on a pub crawl that lasts longer than three pubs but those things can wait for the experience I am having here. There have been a lot of drunken nights, silly laughter and lazy days which is largely what I like life to consist of. For me to be famously and vehemently anti-small town, my time here in Longreach (eight weeks so far) has been a lovely break from urban life and is letting me save enough money to fund the final Aussie hurrah before flying home from Sydney on December 13^th.

Waiter, waiter! There's a mushroom in my mushroom risotto!

Last year when I was living in Belfast for the first time in nearly four years I would often find myself running into people who I had not seen since my school days. While this was perfectly pleasant, I treaded carefully through each of these conversations, fearfully awaiting whatever variation of the inevitable “What are you up to these days?” that was going to come up. I did not want to admit the reality of my situation to myself never mind acquaintances from what felt like another lifetime; I was unemployed, living with my mother, completely broke, with no postgraduate place waiting on me in September. So I decided to dwell on my recent accomplishments and always came out with my carefully crafted catchphrase, “Well I'm just back from south east Asia...” I would then promptly launch into a brief description of my days back in 'Nam making it seem like Belfast was nothing more than a leisurely sojourn in my fabulous jet setting lifestyle. But even months later when I had found employment in a cafe, I was still “JUST back”. Some part of me was embarrassed that my life was lacking direction for the first time in as long as I could remember and that my only fall back was the hospitality industry – with four years experience it was all I was qualified to do. It took coming to Australia for me to remember that although hospitality can at times be difficult, thankless work where you get yelled at by mental people and have to take it, it can also be a lot of fun and it is certainly nothing to be embarrassed about.

I remember my first restaurant job was running in The Morning Star over the busy Christmas period - minimal responsibility, all I had to do was bring customers drinks from the bar and food from the kitchen. But I struggled to balance a tray, forgot what number each table was and failed to recognise the orders I was carrying. By the end of the Christmas season, not only had I became fully comfortable covered in strangers' food remains but I  mostly knew what I was doing. I felt like I had survived some sort of festive war as a heroic civilian who had taken up arms to help the brave, tired wait staff do battle with the drunken, well fed customers. (Who exactly had won remains unclear). For my dedicated service to the cause I was promoted to section waitress, decorated with a full length apron and like any veteran worth their salt, I headed back into battle.

Since those early days I have been able to experience different facets of the hospitality industry from being a barista in Manchester, a bartender in Hanoi, a deli worker in Belfast and now having returned to my waitressing roots in Melbourne. I have much more confidence in what I am doing these days, recommending wines with a smile on my face, pen in my hair and plates piled up my arms like a pro. More importantly, I am really enjoying my job and how many people can say that? I am certainly not embarrassed to say I work in a restaurant, especially considering that Melbourne is a sort of foodie epicentre where hospitality is a thriving, competitive industry and compared to home, the “do you want fries with that?” jokes are surprisingly scarce.

However, no amount of experience makes it easier to accept customers who treat you like shit. You hear a lot of people moan about bad customer service, but I can assure you that bad customers are much more of a rampant problem. And I do not mean those fussy customers with insanely specific requests. I mean yes, asking for a mushroom risotto with no mushrooms is crazy, and requesting a pasta sauce that is pink regardless of the flavour is rather nutty and OK, so you want a parma and chips but want to make sure the parma does not touch the chips on the plate and that is pretty loopy but as long as you are not downright rude about it and preferably make some sort of acknowledgement that you are being awkward, the wait staff will make it happen. Under no circumstances act like you are being reasonable, tut or roll your eyes when we try to clarify your request or mutter “how hard is it to take an order?”

My 'favourite' customers are those who assume that you are a complete idiot purely on the basis of you being a waitress. Sometimes this boils to the surface if you have made a mistake (however minor) but some customers feel the need to make it clear that this is their feeling regardless of the standard of your service. It is insulting, nasty, certainly not going to help you get what you want and in those darker moments definitely makes me question my life decisions – not being a waitress, but why I let customers talk to me that way. There have been so many times when I've asked myself what in the world I am doing covered in various food substances, letting some irrational customer talk to me like I've only recently crawled out of the primordial ooze when what I actually want to do is dunk her face in a vat of coleslaw screaming “I've a first class BSc with honours you obnoxious fart maggot!” But then I take a deep breath and remind myself that this display would be counterproductive to coming across as a sophisticated, well educated woman of the world (and most likely would result in a swift and brutal firing).

Chances are, that moments after you have composed yourself, you will go to a table to greet them or take an order and be wholly ignored, often with someone eventually dismissing you with a wave of their hand, not even bothering to look at you. Or someone will snap their fingers or whistle at you to gain your attention, making you feel simultaneously like a dog and embarking on a murderous rampage. Or a family will inform you their kid has vomited over one of the restaurant's high chairs and tell you to clean it up, or if you are really lucky, someone will have changed their baby's nappy on the table and hand you the dirty diaper to dispose of. And yes, all of these things happened. More than once.

These moments are hard to take and probably prove that hospitality is not for everyone. I often wonder how much of a coincidence it is that the word hospital features in hospitality. These positions definitely carry physical and mental liability, possibly enough to warrant a warning label.

Side effects of the industry may include:

• headache, backache, aching feet and pains in your arms/wrists
• burns
• extreme fatigue
• depression including diminished self esteem
• psychosis
• increased appetite
• rage blackouts
• fantasies about punching people

I read a great phrase the other day 'server not servant' and I think there should be signs reminding customers of this in every restaurant. What gives people the right to treat hospitality staff like the dirt on their shoes baffles me. Yes, there are a lot of bad waiters out there, but remaining calm and polite is much more likely to get your problem resolved than being rude and derogatory. I guess the the job would not be the same without the crazy customers but the rude ones can definitely go. I cannot imagine a day without being asked if the risotto comes with rice or if we could make a carbonara without egg yolk and in all honesty, I would not want to. The silly stories are a major benefit of hospitality and help you put up with all the shit. I enjoy my job and have always loved the social aspect of hospitality and how your fellow staff become a little community against the customers of the world. So please, just think how happy I could be if you all stopped being such douchebags!

What's In A Name?

This is the story of the relationship I have with my name.

Somewhat self indulgent yes, but living in a hostel I am introducing myself on an almost daily basis and often have to follow up with an explanation that no, Dominique is not a traditional Irish name, it's French and no, I am not part French. Furthermore, some French people around the hostel have tainted my family nickname of Neeks by informing me that it is a dirty word in French and telling jokes that play on the whole name of Dominique. As such, recently I have been thinking a lot about my name and one of the conclusions all this name pondering has brought me to is that names are complicated.

New parents can spend months agonising over what to name the new addition to their family, wanting to find a name that they like or that means something special to them. You also hear stories about parents who wait until the infant is born before making that final decision, wanting to make sure the name 'fits' the child in an attempt to personalise it. But when it comes down to it, how personal can a name get? How many hundreds of thousands of other people have that exact name? In a way, there is almost some vague logic to the ridiculous celebrity baby name madness – do they just want to give their child as unique of a name as possible? (Even if this does come at the cost of potential playground teasing for the Apples, Blankets and Suris of this world...then again what do they care when they can gallop past the would be teasers on their pony?)

Specially made 'Dominique' shirt. Looking fly.

Dominique is a perfectly normal, non-made up name that is meant for people and yet growing up in West Belfast I might as well have introduced myself as Jermajesty for the reactions it evoked. I always had to repeat my name, kids on my street struggled to say it and no-one in my primary school class had the foggiest idea how to spell it. I was often informed “that's a boys name” when the Belfast accent butchered Dominique to become Dominic and as a result, a significant amount of people just called me that (often including my own grandfather). Sure it was cool to have the interesting name which stood out in a sea of Ciaras and Siobhans in the Glen Road camogie circles I rolled in but everyone hits that age when all they want to do is fit in and having an obscure French name makes that difficult from the outset. The there was that blasted song. You know the one. With the nun singing my name and taking cruel liberties with the syllables and adding “anoooh” ones. I was tortured by that song. Resultantly, I had serious problems with my name and I blamed my mother, swearing that her grandchildren would be Bob and Jane.

When I started secondary school I was eager to leave my by then tiresome name behind so I tried out a variety of nicknames, the first of which was Dee. Simple, to the point, I liked it but it never really caught on past my closest circle of friends and even they largely used it in notes or texts rather than when speaking to me. Then my cousin Laura started calling me Nicki which for some reason I loved but could never decide how to spell which made me seem a little schizophrenic; one day I would identify myself as Nikki before Niqui dropped by for some confusion correspondence. This one still pops up occasionally but was largely a write off. The only consistent nicknames I was known by in these early years were Neekers or Neeks, my family's terms of endearment. While perfectly happy with these, they also had their problems as 'hilarious' cousins were quick to change Neekers to Knickers and then laugh at their own wit and cleverness for calling me a type of underwear. And yet it continued – people were encouraged to play around with my name. There was only one nickname I could not stand: Dom.

I just hated the sound of it and refused to be called it.“Dom.” Dom. DOM. Dominique was considerably preferable. Anyone who called me Dom promptly received a verbal cease and desist order which was strictly enforced (or they were just ignored until they were capable of using my full name) and this continued until I was in my 2^nd year of university.

Scoop - The 1st people to get away with calling me Dom.

Everyone I knew in Manchester called me Dominique (except when referring to me in texts in which case I was simply known as 'Irish') until I started working at Scoop. I definitely started off as Dominique but then slowly, people started calling me Dom. I must have let it slide the first few times for whatever reason because it spread like wildfire and suddenly I was no longer Dominique. When I took a stand and explained to my co-workers that I much preferred Dominique, they informed me it was too late and continued to shorten my name. One girl even went so far as to call me “Dom Dom.” I was having none of it “Add 'inique' if you feel compelled to add more syllables to my name!” I snapped. “Oh, but please, I love it!” “Well I don't.” Surely it was more important that I, the owner of the name, loved it? But still, I came to grudgingly accept being called Dom and when I forced my university friends to socialise with my Scoop friends, the university pals found the idea of calling me Dom hilarious and told the Scoopers this. “But what do you call her?” “Dominique.” “Oh.”

Now lots of people know me as Dom which is madness considering no-one dared to utter that single syllable for close to the first 20 years of my life. I was often called Dom when working in Hanoi but not consistently, the City Picnic crew in Belfast rarely used my full name (there was another attempt at Dom Dom there that had to be swiftly stamped out) and simply everyone I know in Melbourne both from my hostel and work calls me Dom exclusively. How did this happen?! I can assure you I did not introduce myself to any of these people as Dom. It has even got to the point where someone asked me “Do you mind being called Dominique?” only to be confused when I said I preferred it.

The rapping vagabond.

There have been other incarnations of my name over the years, but mainly used in good fun rather than in a 'we are seriously going to call you this' way e.g. condom, dominatrix or just singing the Mission Impossible theme tune with the syllable 'dom.' In my final year of university, the boys started calling me Mo'nique, which I liked to think of as my ghetto alter ego. For a brief period I was even called Betty. But there have been fun moments with Dominique as well – my friends in Belfast went through a phase of circling me and chanting my name just because it was a fun name to chant. On my 21^st birthday, on the drunken bus home I was introduced to a vagabond (for some reason or the other) who began rapping about my name. I doubt these things would have happened if I was in fact a Jane. (No offence to any Janes, I happen to really love the name - much to my mother's despair). 

So that is the story of me and my name (went on for a while, didn't it?) Our relationship has been pretty rocky at times but at least we have had a relationship, I am sure there are many people out there who have never given their names a second thought. There may have been rough patches but we are good now, I like my name (and a decent amount of its variations), it feels personal and I do not think I would suit another. In all the reactions to my name I've never heard “Oh...you don't look like a Dominique” so my mother must have been onto something. And as she says I should count myself lucky – I came pretty close to being Shaharazad.

Confessions of a Junk Foodaholic.

I have always had a tricky relationship with food. When I was younger my mother swore that my appetite had mood swings; I would eagerly munch down on every edible item in sight (and those in closed cupboards) for the best part of a week before picking like a bird at whatever was put down in front of me for a day or two. In recent years my bird picking days have been limited to stressful, busy times when I do not necessarily find the time to sit down to a proper meal or when my funds are running dangerously low.

In general, if there is food I want that is easily accessible then I must eat it. Even if I am full. When I order a take away (and standardly order enough to feed the masses) I have a strategy to cram in as much of the deliciousness as possible – speed eating. My theory is that the faster you eat, the longer it takes for your stomach to realise you are full and as such you can enjoy much more food in the one sitting. Once I hit the full level, I simply sit back for a few minutes, maybe do some light burping and then begin eating again very slowly. At this point, you must be careful not to startle your stomach – it should not know that ingestion has recommenced until it is too late. This process can be repeated a number of times until you have cleared your plate...and the food containers.

With amazing restaurants and delicious cafés being close to ubiquitous in Melbourne, returning broke from the farm where I had also been incredibly well fed was insanely difficult for me and my stomach to bear. I spent $20 on a week's supply of food which mainly consisted of bread, ham, cheese and a lot of instant noodles (a staple that kept me alive through my university years). As a result I was not eating all that much because while the taste aspect was delicious for about a day, after that day my supplies did not make any meals I particularly wanted to eat. Eventually, my financial situation ruled out ham (even the cheapest packets, that were supposedly 'shoulder ham' – yummers!) and I became a reluctant vegetarian. Weeks later I would lament that the last proper piece of meat I ingested before my animal abstinence was a Sausage McMuffin (my first ever in fact) which is more 'meat' than meat. Considering what a carnivore I am and how many (semi-joking) anti-vegetarian rants I have produced over the years this was not actually that difficult. I have always said that when I get fat (and let's be honest, it is coming to me, my metabolism is going to quit eventually) I would never have the willpower to diet but it is fine – just become flat broke so you can only afford things you do not really want to eat. The real problem kicked in once I had a little bit of money. Of course what I should have done was buy moderately interesting ingredients rather than being stuck with noodles and toasties. What actually happened was that my junk food cravings took a hold on my stomach and my wallet.

I have openly admitted on a number of occasions that I find few things on this earth as delicious as chips; garlic chips, mayo chips, chilli chips, curry chips, gravy chips, cheesy chips, curry gravy cheesy chips (don't knock it until you have tried it) or just golden and piping hot with salt and vinegar, slapped onto fresh bread so fast that the butter starts to melt and escapes the buttie to drip down your fingers. They may be “the devil's starchy fingers” but sweet heaven in a cone are they tasty! It is not just chips – I have an unhealthy love of most unhealthy food and always have but it is only since I have been in Australia that I have came to terms with things - my name is Dominique and I am a Junkie. (Not in the heroin way, in the junk food way, get it?) 

Once I was earning money in Melbourne I reverted to that petulant seven year old who cannot walk past a McDonalds or a KFC without suddenly becoming faint with hunger. The pangs were too much – I deserved a treat after those weeks of taste starvation. So I went in and spent money on this little treat. Naturally the same thing happened at dinner time. And the next day. Who cared if I barely had the money to cover the next week's accommodation, I needed that Big Mac and nothing else seemed important except getting my fix. I made excuses for my habit like "I do not have time to cook" and "I only eat chips socially" even though I was hitting up Red Rooster solo and dumping the wrappers in case anyone found them. KFC in particular became a vice, it is just so good here! All the varieties are available in a spicy option and the chips are generously sprinkled in chicken salt, one of the most abstract but delicious seasonings I have ever had to good fortune to come across. The only disappointment I encountered in this fast food rampage was Burger King.

It took me a while to realise that Hungry Jacks was in fact Burger King under a different trading name. My first trip was to grab a small nuggets meal which was below average – the nuggets contained nothing that resembled chicken and the chips were lukewarm and floppy. When I realised it was BK and would serve my beloved Bacon Double Cheeseburger meal I assumed the nuggets encounter was a singularly sub-par experience, a bad day for the home of the flame grilled whopper. Oh how wrong I was. The chips were just as bad as they had been the first time round, the bacon was rank and the meat itself was flat and tasteless.I only ate half of it. I was truly devastated. I came close to weeping (in my defense I was hungover and that burger was supposed to save me rather than crush my soul). It became clear why they could not trade as Burger King in Australia – their products were terrible. Burger Jester would have been more fitting because that bacon double cheese was a joke (that's right, no capitals for this one, it did not deserve it). And poor Jack, clearly he is so hungry because even he does not want to eat his own burgers. Now I'm not saying I hit rock bottom, but this disgusting burger was certainly somewhat of a wake up call. The dirty satisfaction I normally got from fast food was missing and I had to start looking elsewhere for what my stomach was craving.

Once I got into the swing of things at work and the money started rolling in with a glorious consistency I did a proper food shop and began cooking. Being in a small hostel with a modest sized kitchen also helped as so many shared kitchens become intimidating with huge groups of backpackers forming cliques around the stove tops making them impossible to get to. In previous hostels, I often reverted to cooking instant noodles in the microwave (which I very much frown upon) as it was worth not having to do battle to claim a saucepan and gas hob. It is not that I cook particularly healthy or exciting things – various forms of pasta, chilli and stir fries are largely what I whip up but it is definitely the way forward. Of course I still give the fast food chains more of my money than I should (I can sense them out there...calling to me...) but it has become a treat rather than a staple. This way, I can fatten my wallet instead of myself. Or you know, spend the money on alcohol, which we all know is calorie (and guilt) free. Besides I could never give it up entirely - I get free pizza in work and you cannot say no to free food. I just have to occasionally exercise this mystical 'willpower' I have heard so much about and take it one day at a time.

UPDATE: Around two hours after I posted this blog I was inexplicably in Hungry Jacks.

Going South For Winter Does Not Always Work

It is somewhat unfortunate that I love the city of Melbourne so much. When I came to Australia, my vague travel 'plan' was to visit various pals who had also chosen the Land Down Under as their continent of choice and then follow the heat. Australia's mass is sufficiently huge for some regions to endure all four seasons while others enjoy the consistency of the tropics. I fully intended to take advantage of this by spending summer and some of autumn in southern territories before packing up and heading north as soon as I detected a chill in the breeze (yes, southern hemisphere has crazy backwards migration). This would save me the cost and trouble of having to purchase a coat – the dream was to constantly have a backpack stuffed with many tiny summer clothes, completely free from bulky, space stealing winter items. Basically, if I was going to travel all the way to Australia why on earth would I choose to be cold? As it turns out, it is because Melbourne is in south east Australia and it's flipping awesome!

A Fed Square building

One of Australia's best known cities (often cited as the capital by those smart enough to know it is not Sydney but too stupid to know it is Canberra) Melbourne has a large and bustling CBD with towering office blocks, numerous shops from high street to designer and streets that create a perfect rectangular grid. After some exploration of the grid however, you find that sections are packed with narrow, winding lanes that are crammed with cute coffee shops and cool bars that create a quaint, cosy atmosphere in the heart of the energetic city centre. The grid is also dotted with interesting buildings both old and new; Flinders Street Station, the oldest train station in Australia, is a majestic Victorian building that sits on a corner facing Federation Square, an open area marked buy a set of modern metal and glass buildings constructed in a complex geometric design. But as a local once told me, “Melbourne is all about the suburbs.”

Part of the Docklands - my restaurant is to the right

My current hostel is on the border of two such suburbs – Collingwood and Fitzroy (although the post office have proclaimed it Collingwood). A twenty minute tram ride from the CBD, I live on a street littered with vintage clothing stores, second hand shops, cafés with open mic nights and art galleries. It is like the CBD but cheaper, cooler and closer together. Then there is St Kilda, a suburb on the other side of the city that very kindly hosts a lovely beach as well as the standard night life offerings. (Supposedly St Kilda is where “all the Irish are” but being a rebel I decided against it as my 'burb of choice). There is also the beautiful docklands area, which is where I am lucky enough to work. The outside seating area of my restaurant gives a view of gentle water, flashy boats and the odd row boat race. The suburbs in Melbourne seem to take on a life of their own; they may be a sub level of urban but when you are there you do not feel like you are on the edge of something bigger and better because everything you want is right on your doorstep.

One of the other things Melbourne is 'all about' is coffee. I would go so far as to posit that it is the unofficial Coffee Snob capital of the world. Now I have on occasion considered myself somewhat of a Coffee Snob (partly symptomatic of giving a caffeine addict barista training) but these people take the biscotti! Previous coffee related culture clashes have involved my own indignation but in Melbourne I have transformed into the confused waitress from my No Speak Americano tale; pen poised to write down the order just as soon as I hear a word I recognise, marvelling that the bar comply in endlessly brewing these very specific types of coffee (but more on that in a later post). But Melbourne is known for its café culture in general, even outside of the world of coffee - Melburnians are serious foodies. If I had more money I would fit right in.

The view of Flinders Station from Fed Square

Another aspect of the city that has so far been a double edged sword is that it is mad for sport. Near my work is Ethiad Stadium where the Aussie rules 'footy' is played (a crazy game based on an oval pitch – the playing grounds do not have corners!) I have not gotten into this sport quite yet but it helps keep me light on my feet in work when there is a match on and the resulting atmosphere is always great. The other weekend, Melbourne hosted the Grand Prix which pissed me off as it messed with the tram timetables and stops and you could hear the screechy droning of the cars from random parts of the city even though you were nowhere near the track. On the other hand, when I first arrived in Melbourne (the pre-farm week) the Australian Open was on and I got caught up in the excitement of being in the same city as Federer, Nadal, and Murray et al. While at the time I was shit broke and could not entertain the idea of buying even the cheapest of tickets, the atmosphere in the city was amazing. The matches were shown on a massive screen in Federation Square every day and the crowds that gathered there to watch it in the sunshine were as equally thrilled as I was to be there.

So although there are no epic tennis tournaments due soon and autumn has commenced, I have settled into Melbourne enough that I have no plans to head north any time soon. For now I am loving the city, I am enjoying my job, comfortable in my hostel and have made some really good friends. I am pretty darn happy and if that means I have to buy a coat with insulating properties, then so be it.

...and that's how we get hamburgers.

My first month in Australia was reasonably fast paced considering that in those four weeks I managed to visit four states – pretty good going! After my arrival in Sydney, New South Wales I headed to Canberra, Australian Capital Territory then did a fun ACT – NSW – ACT – NSW hopscotch that eventually landed my back in Sydney for a few days. Then on January 6th it was up to Surfers Paradise (yes this is the actual name of the town), Queensland to visit Lewis, a Hanoi Backpackers alumnus.

Surfers had been described to me as the Blackpool of Australia which as it turns out, is largely all you need to know about it. Very touristy beach town with a strip of bars and restaurants, general ‘amusements’ such as a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum and…that is about it. I spent the vast majority of my time there lounging in the shade with cider but I met a lot of great people and it was really good fun. One of the best parts of this week was a day trip to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary (note: not in Surfers) where I saw my first kangaroos and koalas. We also got to watch crocodiles jumping out of the water for food with a massive snap of their jaws which was freaking awesome. It was a completely glorious day, even despite my sudden wariness of kangaroos once I was walking amongst them and given the opportunity to feed them. But really, it was all about the koalas.

One day short of my one month Aussiversary I arrived in Melbourne, Victoria (on which there will be more in a later post considering it is my current home). Mapping these journeys is not (only) a way of once again flaunting how well travelled I am, but also illustrates the sheer randomness of my eventual decision to settle down on a farm. All those wonderful places I had visited and somehow I decided that rural Victoria was the place for me. Well, OK, that is not exactly how the decision process evolved. It was more like being in Surfers, realising I had spent ridiculous amounts of money considering all I was doing was sitting in the shade, drinking cider (hmm…) and getting a well timed call from Jenny (yep, you guessed it, yet another Hanoi Backpackers alum) saying the farm she was on could do with another worker and wouldn’t it be fun if that worker was me? It was not going to be a paid gig, just accommodation and food, but a whole month of spending next to no money sounded great and it had been over a year since I had seen Jenny so after five days in Melbourne I jumped on a bus to Taggerty. 

The bus journey itself managed to be quite eventful, partly because I was hideously hungover and tragically sleep deprived. The previous night, a civilised evening of dinner and drinks with Jono (who yes, I also know from Hanoi Backpackers, let’s not dwell on it) turned into a beer pitcher fuelled karaoke night that went onto 5am with people from my hostel who I had ran into while attempting to go to bed. Ain’t it always the way? So as I crawled onto the bus with my 20kg of belongings, cringing at the memory of storming the stage when Drippy Girl sang her 5^th Drippy Song of the night (Especially For You – she had to be stopped) I just about remembered to tell the bus driver I was going to Taggerty and would it be OK if he dropped me at Yellow Creek Road? Sure, not a problem. Excellent.  

About 100 kilometres outside of Melbourne (that’s right, I use kilometres now and yes, this is probably the furthest I have ever been from a city at any point in my entire life when I have not been on a plane) the winding bus journey takes two and a half hours so around this time I am getting ready to disembark, eyes peeled looking for things that say 'Taggerty'. Naturally, I end up in Eildon which is about 40km of bus route past Taggerty and the terminus. Whoops. I asked the bus driver if there is a bus going back to Taggerty. "Why did you fall asleep?" he asked me, clearly amused. 'Um, did YOU?' I internally rage. (External rage proved to be far too exhausting for my current state). My rage subsided after he informed me that there was no bus going back but since he happens to live in Taggerty, he will drive me back, which is awfully nice of him. It would however have helped if he had not chuckled while telling me, "I forgot you asked me to let you know when we were in Taggerty...I actually did not even stop the bus there!" Cheers mate. 


Approaching Taggerty (supposedly for the second time) it becomes clear that there is no way, even on my most alert, sober day, I could have spotted it myself as it is in fact a bus stop without a proper sign on it, beside a bridge called 'Little River.' As I would later realise, Taggerty is off the main road and seems to consist of a general store (a post office/convenience store/ cafe/coffee shop/off-license - in your face City Picnic!) and a primary school. I am sure there are some houses around somewhere but I still reckon you could walk from one end of Taggy (affectionate nickname)  to the other in two minutes which uncharacteristically, is not an exaggeration. According to Wikipedia aka Source of All Knowledge, about 600 people live in the Taggerty area and while I'm not sure what the land mass of this is, the nearest towns were at least 20 kilometres away.

The cabin - my first rural home

Our host, a gun toting farmer dentist ( try fitting that on your business cards) owns a vast amount of land, mainly occupied by cattle but also containing a cherry orchard where most of my work was to take place. The picking season was over but I was there to help Jenny do odd jobs which started with 'wipper snippering' which involves snipping wippers/cutting suckers. Yes, that's as technical as I got. We also moved logs, weeded and other tasks that amounted to glorified gardening. At the end of my first day (about 2.5 hours of actual work) my arms were aching, my back was sore and the skin on my hands had started to peel. Oh, rural life! I was also dirty as sin, which was great considering showering was limited to three minutes, preferably not every day since we were not connected to a water supply, instead relying on rain to fill up the water tanks. Obviously in the middle of summer, this is great. 

Yes, you may think I am setting the scene for a heart-warming but ultimately predictable movie about a city girl who moves to a ridiculously small town and while appalled at first, eventually rises to the occasion. I am not. Anyone who knows me knows I am a city girl to the core, if I ever discover or devise the word for being discriminatory against tiny towns I will emblazon it on a t-shirt and wear it with pride. Even Romy’s coast house often proved too rural for me. She would giggle watching me cautiously prowl through a small patch of overgrown grass leaving me to spit “I’m not Nature Girl, OK?!” So when I hit the farm I could have given Paris and Nicole a run for their considerable wealth. I never got used to the early starts, the endless dirt under my finger nails or even the basic concepts of manual labour. I showed obvious disgust when pulling the slimy yabby (crayfish type crustacean) nets out of the dam, moaned when my feet got muddy and never fully trusted the cows not to do something to me (although I was unsure what since they are slow and incredibly stupid creatures). 

It did not help that we were told to be on the lookout for snakes. Jenny had been on the farm for two months before I arrived and never had seen one but this just made me more convinced that the snakes were waiting especially for me. This wariness reached a head one night when we had to go up to the orchard to turn off the irrigation (a word I had not used since A-level Geography that was suddenly back in my life with a practical vengeance).  Having decided that snakes were nocturnal creatures, every time I hopped out of the ute (Aussie truck) to open and close a gate I was frantically scanning the long grass with a torch and taking quick, giant leaps like a madwoman.

I have two points to make about this incident, the first being somewhat of a tangent. I no longer understand the phrase ‘were you born in a field?’ being directed towards people who fail to close doors. Fields may not have doors but closing gates is very important. If someone was born and presumably raised in a field I can only believe that they would have an almost obsessive need to close every door they subsequently encountered due to their gate like function. You do not want cows roaming into your living room. 

The second is on the fear of the unfamiliar – the orchard at night completely terrified me, I was constantly afraid of a snake attack or even a particularly rambunctious wombat charging at me. And yet, on many occasions I have been in big cities at night and not even thought about the possibility of encountering a mugger or any other sort of street criminal. In Hanoi, I would preach to tourists about the importance of taking approved motorbike taxis home and not bringing out all your belongings but often walked home by myself with my phone, purse and camera and felt perfectly safe. I am sure far more city people are mugged than rural folks are bitten by snakes but to me there and then spotting a snake seemed imminent. In fairness, if I had spotted a snake and (as was much more likely) it just went on its merry way without coming near me I still would have reacted. You cannot react to muggers who do not mug you, they just look like regular people. 

Of course the benefits of the farm considerably outweighed my largely irrational fears and dislike of being grimy. The biggest advantage was getting to spend time with Jenny again, who although I had only known for six weeks in Hanoi, I considered a dear friend. A close second was having a double bed in a room all to myself. Our wooden cabin was cute and homely with a deck to sunbathe the afternoons away on. The main house was a minute’s walk away; a large, modern building where the farmer cooked us dinner every evening. For a month, I had ridiculously good food from chicken livers to venison to the yabbies we had caught in one of the farm’s dams. Of course we had regular pasta dishes and stir fries as well but it is important to point how spoiled we were. We also were treated to some fine wines and in our last week, some truly exceptional port – I could get used to this aspect of ‘farm life’ very easily. 

Safe in the wildlife park - not on the farm

In addition to being a farmer and a dentist, our host was also a hunter. One evening, while doing the dishes I spotted a rabbit bouncing around the back garden and happened to comment on this out loud. In under three minutes the rabbit had been shot, skinned, gutted and was in the fridge. We had it as a starter the next evening. This took some getting used to (and some of you may find it highly controversial, for which I apologise) but it was also quite fascinating. Early one morning we got up and headed to the farm in time to see the kangaroos, one of which bit the bullet. It was one of those surreal moments at 6.30am when you are standing on a farm, watching Jenny fillet her first kangaroo. I am sure you can all relate. We kept some of the organs to use as bait for the yabby traps while the meat was to be marinated and enjoyed at a later time. The animals were shot to be eaten, not for sport. We were just cutting out the middle man. And it was not all blood and guts – civilised fishing also took place. (That’s right, I have been fishing). Once reeled in and admired the fish were dehooked and returned to the dam.

When people ask me about my month on the farm I always say, ‘well...it was an experience.’ But really, it was an amazing experience. As much as I moaned and grimaced, I had a brilliant time, it was something completely new and different for me and really, isn’t that what I am supposed to be searching for on my travels? (Other than a good party of course). It was a simple, enjoyable time and let’s not kid anybody, I was not engaging in any actual farm work. Jen and I coined our tasks as ‘landscape tidying.’ I would not take back my time in Taggerty for anything but getting back to Melbourne and returning to the hospitality industry has been a massive relief. City girl to the core.

Oh and no, I never did see a snake.