(Look at me go, I put this in holidays because I am going on a holiday *headdesk* Could a mod please move it to travel?)

Due to reason I do not wish to discuss under my user name, I am going to leaving my apartment when my lease is up in 5 months. Now the way I saw it, I had a couple options. If I had a job, I could get another apartment. If I did not have a steady job go back to Alberta and save up some money. Before coming out here again with a friend from Alberta next summer. Or I could go on an adventure.

After someone telling me many times to move to Australia, I decided, "Hey, why not go there?"

So my plan? To back pack across Australia for 5-6 months come March 1. I have always wanted to go and I figure I can pick up odd jobs along the way to help pay for things. I can house sit or stay at hostels or camp (I love to camp).

Only problem is I know nothing about Australia other then that it is large and warm.

So, where should I go? What should I see? Where should I stay?

You seem to be quite on an adventure

I don't know much about Australia in general, but I am wondering about a work visa. Do they have available short term jobs for people in this economy?

I am sure you know this...but you are going in March, April May....aren't those the fall/winter months? I know nothing about weather pattern there, but it would suck to camp out during rainy season if they have a rainy season in the fall/winter.

I am used to -30 winters so a bit of rain will hardly phase me.

And yes, I have looked into getting the visa. I will be getting a traveling work visa which is good for 12 months from the day I enter the country.

It sure is an adventure. One I am starting to enjoy more and more every day I never realized how unhappy I was back in Alberta. I love going out and seeing the world.

All I know about Australia is that Erin is there (and lots of other nice ddn-ers, too) - So plenty of reason to go!

AWW YEAH!!

*beats own drum*

Felsa, I will come back and reply to this later on when I am not on my way out the door. Stay tuned!

Erin.
::righteous babe::

According to many of our 'finest', the only way in is by boat. But to get a ticket you must grow a beard.

If you can, come by plane. It's a bit safer, so long as a cockatoo or wallaby doesn't get sucked into the engine (those things can jump!).

Other than that, I don't think I am any more help at this time.

Mark
(p.s. - mind the drop bears)
(p.p.s. - everything I've typed is largely untrue, except the drop bears)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Australia's version of Panic!

Erin.
::righteous babe::

We also have Rotti. Be warned.

Mark
(Actually, with that piece of information, I might just be done with it and book that ticket to Osaka)

Scarlet wrote:


(p.s. - mind the drop bears)
(p.p.s. - everything I've typed is largely untrue, except the drop bears)

I've lived in Australia since birth, and I genuinely believed in dropbears until I was 16 years old. I figured I was safe though, because they only lived in Queensland. I may have passed this information on in good faith to a group of 12-year-olds I was responsible for teaching outdoor skills to, and I can't promise you that anyone ever corrected me...

I'm an Aussie!!!

If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask.

In terms of places to stay, there is a lot of land here and lots of different things to do. Are you planning to do the whole of Australia? I live in Perth and so although I have travelled around the country a bit, most of my knowledge is centred around Western Australia. Are you a nature person? Beach person? Animals? Art?

Most people come to WA for the beaches, and you can travel the whole west coast. Broome has stairway to the moon, Monkey Mia is known for the ability to get up close to dolphins and other sea creatures. The beaches around the city are nice- and there are plenty of pubs etc overlooking the ocean. Down south there is Esperance and Albany, both of which are known for their beaches also.

Rottnest Island is nice too, though expensive to visit for what it is. It's always relaxing to stay there however.

The centre of Australia is pretty dry and average (at least I think so). Peaceful, but average. Kalbarri is always worth a visit though. Of course also the landmark Ayers Rock (or Uluru), but I don't think they let you climb it anymore so it's a long way to go to look at a rock.

East Coast... Melbourne for shopping, Gold Coast for theme parks and beaches and Sydney for all the touristy sites they use to advertise Australia- the opera house (worth seeing a production here), luna park and the harbour bridge. I prefer Manly to Sydney as places to stay over there though. The Gold Coast is very touristy. Draculas restaurant in addition to the theme parks, is definitely worth a visit even if you aren't doing the tourist thing! Further up the east coast are the Whitsunday Islands which are also lovely.

Autumn starts in March and the majority of your planned trip will be over our coldest part of the year. When I say cold, it's around 14-15 degrees celcius during the day. Camping will be a little wet, but definitely not cold if you are used to it! The beaches wont be as glamorous though.

I've just outlined the most popular spots that people visit when here, but if you are after more "hidden gems" or more info about anything else at all, hit me up!

It's not necessarily all that warm here... not as cold as Canada but if you're here and down in Melbourne/Tasmania in winter you'll find its pretty cold! And we do have snow here in the Alpine area.
If youre interested in backpacking around different cities have a look at sites like
Firefly
Virgin
Jetstar
Tiger
Great Southern Rail
For ideas of how much money/time it'll cost you to get around the country.
I wrote a giant post somewhere on here about all the great things in Adelaide, I'll have to see if I can dig it up. I lived in South Australia til I was 18 and have been living in Victoria for 4 years now so if you have questions on either of those, do ask...
Oh and if youre coming anywhere near vic in may/june/july/august/sept you will need to adopt a footy team stat....

Off to google drop bears as I have no idea what you are talking about!

Oh I know all about the blasted drop bears

I am into everything. I love being out in nature and going on hikes, I love art and everything to do with the arts, I LOVE animals and beaches and theme parks. The only I do not like are your giant spiders.

14-15 degrees celcius to me is pretty warm. The highest we hit in Alberta this year was maybe 25C? 20C is my preferred temp, anything above that makes me want to melt away. This is also why I have decided to come in your winter months, because your summer months are too dang hot!

I do plan on seeing as much of the country as I can. I am hoping I can take the train from city to city, I have yet to look into that.

Question about the wildlife, should you stay away from it? I have seen many pictures of people holding the geckos and skinks and other small animals. Not sure if this is allowed or if they just do it to break rules.

I didn't even think about sports! I will be sure to hit up Victoria to what a football game. There are no places around here to watch professional soccer and I love watching it a lot.

Felsa wrote:

Question about the wildlife, should you stay away from it? I have seen many pictures of people holding the geckos and skinks and other small animals. Not sure if this is allowed or if they just do it to break rules.

If it's in the wild, good luck finding something that will let you hold it. Also, you never know what is going to bite you so your probably best avoiding touching stuff. Zoos and wildlife parks have all sorts of animals and the like that you can hold/touch/get a photo with

Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi! You'll love it here! I am so excited for you.

Oh another thing!

This is probably the stupidest question in the world, but I have hardly been outside Canada so...

With money, is it best to get it all switched over and bring cash? Or can I use my debit card there? Hopefully I can somehow get a credit card out of the bank in the next 5 months, but if I can't, I have no idea how any of it works.

Oh and! What is he style like there? What do people wear? I am sure I will stick out enough wearing shorts and a t-shirt when it 20 degrees out, but I do not want to look like a total tourist

Your debit card ought to work, just check ATMs or EFTPOS terminals to make sure they've got either VISA or MasterCard on them (depending on which one's on the card).

To be absolutely sure, check with your bank to see what their fees are for international transactions and with a bit of luck you should be able to find their exchange rate margin if you ask. Don't hold your breath, but asking can't hurt.

It's a good idea to at least get a few Australian dollars before you leave Canada just in case you need to buy some food after landing or catch a taxi and miss a foreign exchange kiosk.

PM me if you want to know a bit about these.

I have no idea about fashions, but I'd assume that wearing what you wear at home will be fine.

I'm also not sure about working conditions on particular Visas, but here's a link to the Department of Immigration which deals with Tourist Visas and links to a few other options.

I've lived most of my life along the northern inland and some of the coastal regions of Queensland. There's a lot to find up there. In the south eastern corner there are the Glasshouse Mountains. To the north there is a wealth of rainforest ranges, Cairns is a major tourist hotspot.

Further north is the Torres Strait, which was my number one favourite place to live. If you are working on a tourist visa, I suppose Thursday Island would be the best place to stay. This island has the most infrastructure and is a good place to set up a base of operations. It's fairly easy to get around to the outlying islands from there too. God, I miss that place.

Only thing is the temperature range is 19°C-32°C year round up there, it rarely ventures outside of that range. Actually, when I was teaching up there there was a "cold snap", if you will, where the daily maximum only made it to 24°C. I was in shorts and a polo shirt, the kids rocked up to school in thick jumpers.

Ummm, I think I should get back to work, so I'll stop here and leave a short reminder:
Forgive the people for asking, "What part of the US do you come from?". Just reply with something along the lines of, "What part of New Zealand are you from?"

Mark

Scarlet wrote:



Ummm, I think I should get back to work, so I'll stop here and leave a short reminder:
Forgive the people for asking, "What part of the US do you come from?". Just reply with something along the lines of, "What part of New Zealand are you from?"

Mark

Ahaha! Are you sure I won't get smacked for saying that?

Felsa wrote:

I didn't even think about sports! I will be sure to hit up Victoria to what a football game. There are no places around here to watch professional soccer and I love watching it a lot.

In Victoria (especially Melbourne) football != soccer. Soccer is soccer. Football is Aussie Rules Football, and you get bonus points if you decide to barrack for one of the less-popular teams.

Wildlife generally won't let you get near enough to let you touch it - best take a photo and leave the touchy-feely stuff to the wildlife parks where they're accustomed to human interaction. You should be right to avoid the spiders in the southern states - the spiders generally hibernate and only come out in summer. In Queensland/Northern Territory (and possibly WA), however spider season is year-round.

Winter is usually our grey-and-rainy season, so you'll be hard-pressed to find anywhere decent to camp that doesn't turn into a muddy cesspit. (But then I don't camp, so as far as I'm concerned all campgrounds are muddy cesspits)

And as for what to wear - clothes. Melbourne is more black than other cities, but otherwise, just wear what you're comfortable in. I see people wearing shorts and thongs (flipflops) in all weather.

Caffeine wrote:

Felsa wrote:

I didn't even think about sports! I will be sure to hit up Victoria to what a football game. There are no places around here to watch professional soccer and I love watching it a lot.

In Victoria (especially Melbourne) football != soccer. Soccer is soccer. Football is Aussie Rules Football, and you get bonus points if you decide to barrack for one of the less-popular teams.

Ah my bad! I went here www.footballaustralia.com.au and it shows soccer, or what I made out to be soccer? But now I have gone here www.afl.com.au and see that is different. So confusing! And here I thought I was getting a head start on the lingo

So your football is a mix between football and soccer? It looks like you can carry the football but have to kick it to get points? It looks interesting that is for sure.

As with the animals, I meant more like if they come into where you are staying. Like if you have a gecko on your wall. I would never touch anything out in the wild while hiking. But I will stay away from all animals.

As for camping, I went camping once and it poured the entire week we were there. We went out on a boat for the hour it didn't rain and ended up getting caught in the middle of the lake in a thunder storm. My paddle also snapped in half on the way way. Rain doesn't phase me haha. Although I do plan on mostly staying in hostels.

Just as a head's up- I've not had the Australian working holiday visa, but I've had them for Ireland and UK, and there is usually a minimum amount of money that you need to have in your bank account to prove that you can support yourself while you look for work and book a ticket home. For my visas I had to get a signed statement from my bank saying that I had had 2000$ in savings for a number of months...can't remember exactly how many...2 maybe? So definitely check and make sure you meet all the visa requirements.

*puts up a fire proof shield*

All I've gotten out of AFL is a bunch of dudes in tiny shorts running around a circle kicking a very thin, red ball around an unused cricket field for four 20 minute sessions and still scoring a point for missing the goal.

AFL is really the Victorian code (all of the teams, bar four or so, come from Melbourne or Geelong). There's also Rugby Union (for the private school boys) and Rugby League (commercial version of Union for meatheads who can't string a word together, much less a sentence).

Basically, you've got Cricket for the summer months (which isn't popular at the moment because the Australian team sucks right now, it will be very popular when they start winning a bit more), this is played all over the country. And the football codes are played during the winter.

Soccer is gaining a bit of popularity, there is a tonne of tennis facilities and most places around the country have some variation on horse racing, if that floats your boat.

Also boat racing:


Mark

AFL is the best sport since sliced bread There'll be 8 non-vic teams in the draw next year since Greater Western Sydney is starting (shoulda been a Tas team... but whatever) and 9 Vic teams. As long as you dont pick Collingwood you should be sweet

Getting the train from city to city.... eesh its not very time effective, or cheap. Youll be eligible for the backpackers rate but even so, the bus is usually quicker and faster, and generally go overnight as well. Trains are super comfy but on shorter journey like Syd-Mel or Mel-Adel they go during the day- the seniors seem to like them- but the scenery is a little to be desired. Unless youre into 10 hours of paddocks. If you're a bit savvy and flexible about when you want to travel, plane fares can sometimes be cheaper than bus/train and SO much quicker!

Yeah I was looking into the bus and noticed that it is much cheaper then the train. I think I will vary it up. Unfortunately I am terrified of flying and will be heavily drugged for most of my trip to Australia and back so flying within the country is not something I want to do.

My new plan is to hit up all the sporting events I come across haha.

I am thinking I should start at southern Australia and work my way up north?

Sounds good. Loads to look at, if you like beer then this is, as of last week, the largest Australian brewer in the country:

.

Other than these guys the only Australian owned stuff is produced by microbreweries. The others were all sold off.

Otherwise there's good access (in major centres) to a multitude of ciders, wines, international beers, spirits and those God-forsaken alcopops.

Also, I hear you're a vegetarian. Here's a good list of what beverages are ok for vegetarians and vegans, and which ones aren't:
LINK! He's come to save the Princess Zelda!

Thankfully the Coopers range is okay. Nom nom nom.

Mark

What do people wear?

Doesn't matter. If you're backpacking, then you're packing for whatever takes up the least space, not what is going to make you the most fashionable.

And so, since your "dreams" are to act and run a cafe...how does backpacking through Australia in any way put you in line to accomplish either one of those? And what about circus school? How does Australia put you in line for that?