Dave Harding’s Blog

Hi all!

Singapore was a good few days, but there’s really not a huge amount to do.  The city-country is mostly brand new and state of the art.  Even the underground car parks and public toilets are immaculate and spotless, not the slightest bit of litter in the streets.  Getting around is super easy, as everything is in english and very well designed.  There are transport staff on hand at the ticket machines to help and even tell you where to stay.

After a few days I hopped on the train up to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  It’s $35SIN for nearly 300 miles, so very cheap although a bit slow.  Crying babies and customs stops aside, the journey was very easy.
On arriving at KL Sentral though, I found the power was out.  The station is very busy and full of stalls and shops, but a confusing array of transport options doesn’t make it obvious how to get to the monorail.  In fact, the monorail station is BEHIND A BUILDING SITE a street away from Sentral Station.  Pain!

Once here in the lovely district of Bukit Bintang, I checked into a lovely backpacker hostel right on a corner of the Golden Triangle.  At least I think so - the streets are very confusing and complicated, and the “Golden Triangle” definitely isn’t triangular.  Or, particularly obvious on the map.  The hostel, Paradiso B&B, is smashing though, with friendly staff and free breakfast brought to you.  There’s air conditioning in the rooms, a roof terrace, great TV lounge and free internet.  Ace!
Nobody cooks here, as eating out in the food courts is cheap at RM6.90.  The food courts and shopping malls are plentiful…ten major malls the size of Merry Hill on every street, and shopping is enormously popular.  I’m much enjoying being able to buy clothes in my size for the right price!
I’ve also been up the Menara KL Tower, a comms tower similar to Canberra’s Telstra Tower, only much bigger.  Petronas Twin Towers are taller, but the viewing gallery is far below the view from Menara.  It’s 39 ringgits to get in, but includes an excellent little reptile zoo and a few minutes in a F1 Simulator.  Which is actually just a PC racing sim built into a mocked up F1 car body.  Fun but nothing a PS3 won’t cope with!

Off to Batu Caves as soon as I get off my ass and brave the buses!

It’s my very last day in Australia, and I can’t believe it’s suddenly all over.  One month left and I’ll be heading into London and fighting my way home in Winter.  In the meantime though, Singapore and Malaysia are on the itinerary.  I’m killing the time in the airport researching and comparing currency.

Australia’s been a mixed bag, some good nights out like Saturday night in Melbourne with Rich, Xanthe and Pieter to celebrate my leaving.   I’ve spent more time working than touring I realise, but needs must and all.
Highlights:

Melbourne!  I so love  it.  Gonna miss the trams, asian student population and Fed Square!   Recommended to anyone.
The Great Ocean Road trip with Emma
Clubbing in cheesy nightclubs such as Magnums and Mama Africa in Airlie Beach
Cairns lagoon park and the drive to Port Douglas
Kakadu National Park, Darwin
Eungella National Park, Mackay
the Blue Mountains, out of Sydney
Ice creams in Perth city with Boris

More to come, but they’re on Facebook anyhow.

Singapore looks like a melting pot in the true sense.  It looks hot and humid and is monsoon season currently, and that wears very thin, very fast.  Still, I can always find a nice bed and breakfast with a quiet room!
According to Malay friend Oga, I should be able to survive in Malaysia on $1011 for a full month.  That includes accommodation, eating out twice a day, and a massage every day.  Score!
Just gotta get my tax back from the Aussie government and all’s well!  Wish me luck…yikes.

Travelling alone again is a little intimidating, but I’m looking forward to soaking up some proper “foreign” culture.   Not that I believe in the word of course, but it will be good to see some different food.  The aussies really can’t do indian food whatsoever (the vindaloo is missing aloo and is about as spicy as oxtail soup) so this part of asia is gonna be heaven.

Love all!

This is the spot I plan to spend New Year’s Eve in.  Fed Square will be heaving, and apparently the whole centre of Melbourne is cordoned off and packed with drunks from lunchtime onwards, including the banks of the Yarra River, just down the steps from me.

Fed Square was recently voted amongst the top ten ugliest buildings in the world, but this offends me.  The buildings are super-modern, quirky, oddly shapen and one is even coated in scrolling message boards.  The square is subtly lit by overhead lights, which gives it virtually a mediterranean feel in the evenings.  It’s a welcoming place with free wi-fi, steps and a very well designed bar, and surrounded by the National Gallery of Victoria, the Australian Center for the Moving Image (oo, must go back there today to play more Atari Missile Command!) and various other stages and skyscrapers.

The steps are currently full of backpackers, tourists, business types on lunch breaks, me, and people meeting in general.  The only thing missing are the public free barbecues so prevalent around Queensland, up ‘norf.

The fireworks should be amazing at New Years, thanks to the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne.  Should be a good gig!

/me breaks into song: “I looooove thiiiiiiis toooown”.

Melbourne’s cool.

Quirky buildings, loads of coffee shops and gourmet hot chocolate joints, infinite backstreet cafes and grungy bars, trams, street events, live music in Federation square…and it’s all open, all the time.
Far cry from Perth then!  Perth closes at 6pm, pubs and all, even at weekends.
On the other hand Perth’s public transport is state-of-the-art, convenient, regular and heavily policed.   Melbourne’s is entirely coin operated and that’s pretty tedious.  But they have trams!  Old, noisy, rickety and wonderful trams.  There’s a free one which circles the CBD with running commentary about the many old buldings, such as the universities, medical schools, libraries and parliament buildings.

I love this place already…one trip into Brunswick St and there were too many un-walk-past-able bars.  Several beers around a wood fire later, I’m chatting to a bunch of architects and feeling right at home.  Out of all the cities I’ve visited in Australia, none of them have wowed me like Melbourne.  I reckon I’m going to stay a while.  If I can find a job…

It’s also been good to hook up with some familar faces, and actually make some new friends; Arik, Emma, soon Bastien, and meeting some of Sarah’s old travel buddies too.

I today moved into an apartment for a week in the northern suburb of Brunswick West.  It’s remote and looks something like a Birmingham township high street, but I hear there are enough bohemian places on Sydney St to keep me happy. Clearly I found an internet cafe already :oP

This is one town you must spend some real time in.  Federation Square, in the heart of town next to the famous Flinders Street Station, is always alive with some live music or performance: this week Australian Idol have a stage set up, which was replaced the next day by Foxtel and the coverage of the Grand Final match of the AFL (Aussie Rules Football League, I guess) .
It’s all enough to take your mind off the temperature.  It’s about 12c today, raining and windy.   Don’t kid yourself, Australia has a proper winter.

Pics to come soon!

I’ve had mine for over a year now, and it’s been a love-hate relationship.  Up until very recently, I’ve hated it and been telling prospetive buyers to steer clear.
Recently however, my poor phone has taken such phenominal punishment, and survived several incidents of woe, so much that I have to concede it’s a tough little bastard.

It lasted the usual toll of life in the UK: drops, kicks, dangling off my desk on the charger cable, earphones wrenched from the socket due to wardrobe malfunction.  The usual.

On the way to Australia it happily played me five House episodes (season 3 at that time, fans) and enough tunes to keep me going for two 8 hour flights.

Since it’s been here, it’s survived:
Being dropped in the sand on Fraser Island
Dropped down the toilet, flushed, dropped again, and charged while still damp inside (cue smoke, overheating and self-loathing on my part)
Two replacement digitizers (the clear front panel which was scratched to hell and back).  One digitizer tore the ribbon cable after I dropped it.

Replacing the digitizer involves dismantling the phone into all component PCBs, and disconnecting all the ribbon connectors which are clearly only intended to be connected once and last the lifetime of the phone.  It’s built in a modular fashion but the case is clipped at the bottom, and requires surprising force to dismantle.
Despite the above torture, my phone still works.  And, with a pristine front panel it looks almost new.   Opera Mobile works especially well, web browsing is very quick on the Ozzie HSDPA nets, pages render rather well. Bejeweled came pre-loaded and although time-limited, has lasted a full year.  It’s very playable!

The 5-megapixel camera is woeful and always has been (I think it’s actually 640×480 interpolated) and I forgot to fully mate the camera module’s cable on last assembly.  If I try to repair it I wonder if the poor thing will finally die.

I wouldn’t blame it.

The Byron Bay YHA is a particularly communal affair.  The dining room, the hammocks, beanbags and tables of the social balcony overlook the pool, where an exceptionally beautiful Swedish girl is doing lengths.  She intermittently attracts the attention of most people with eyeballs.

We crumple onto the beanbags with bottles of the town’s own beer and phenominally overpriced vending machine chocolate.

“Look at that Japanese guy,” mentions my roommate, indicating an elderly but lively chap, eating alone at the end of the bench table.  He’s downed nearly a full bottle of red wine with his dinner.
“His wife died, and then he had a stroke recently.  He’s gone travelling on the last bits of his savings.  He’s a really nice guy, but nobody’s making any effort to speak to him.”

Indeed they’re not.  The table is full of blonde young girls, chatting excitedly in Dutch about their drinking plans for the evening, all trying hard to ignore the chap perched on the end.
Nobody’s making any effort to speak to him.
These words are still ringing in my ears twenty minutes later.  Nobody makes much effort to speak to me either.
So, I sit down and try to strike up a conversation.  He’s delighted that someone is acknowledging his existence.  He’s very polite, from Osaka and called Hiro.  He lost his wife to cancer, and shortly after, suffered a stroke which doesn’t seem to have impacted his speech or motor control.  Still, he carries some air of tragedy.  We both know he’s doing the best possible thing in going travelling. We exchange smalltalk in the best improvised English we can, and he heads for the kitchen to wash up, slightly wobbly on his feet from the wine.  I leave for Cheeky Monkeys with roommates soon after.

Every Japanese guy I’ve met before and since has been called Hiro, from Osaka.  I don’t mean metaphorically though, I think it’s the most popular male name!  I wonder where his travels took him next?
I hope he finds people are friendly and enjoys his trip.  Eating alone in restaurants can be a depressing and lonely business.

Not that I’m any expert in survival, but I thought I’d better make a list of supplies you need if you’re gonna travel. I’m getting around with a relatively tiny 50 litre rucksack, plus a small day-sack, and most other ‘packers have at least 70 litre sacks. I’m small though, which is my excuse.

Stuff you really need:
1. A torch. This is a critical bit of kit for getting into your hostel room when people are sleeping. You need it to find your washbag, taking out your contact lenses when drunk, camping, and when you misjudged the time it would take to do that walking trail and end up doing the last 5 KM in the dark. Keep it in your daysack.

2. A pillowcase: these make great laundry bags, and you definitely need one. They’re soundless, again good when everyone in your dorm is asleep. You won’t wake them up with a rustling carrier bag. Thanks Sarah, you were totally right about this.

3. A hoodie: essential and pretty obvious. Makes a nice pillow if nothing else.

4. A smaller day-rucksack: you WILL need a second sack for carrying around your hoodie, water, maps, camera and food. Don’t skimp on the size either, 25L absolute minimum. I’m still kicking myself for bringing my little one when I have a much better Berghaus one at home.

6. A lighter. I really need to buy one. Although a lot of hostels use electric hobs in the kitchens (awful!), some have gas and invariably the igniters are broken. Also useful when camping for obvious reasons.

7. A small medical kit. Include scissors, nail clippers, plasters, diarrhoea pills, aspirin, cold and flu stuff, and assorted stuff you’re a fan of. Tea tree oil is a very good idea because it heals ANYTHING, and mosquito repellant…well, important if you’re camping.

8. A pen and notebook. Always carry this in your daysack. Infinite uses.

9. An *unlocked* mobile. 3 UK is not the same as 3 Aus, your locked handset will not take an Australian PAYG SIM even on the same network. You can get your phone unlocked here for $40, at a shop in Sydney. A local phone is critical if you’re looking for work, and also important for booking hostels in advance. If you’ve got a handset which runs Google Maps, Bejeweled and Facebook, so much the better. Google Maps has saved my bacon more than once.

10. Earplugs! I nearly forgot - these are also essential. I can’t count the number of snorers I’ve shared dorms with. I forgot how loud people can snore without waking themselves up - they rattle the window panes! Also useful on the bus, plane and any places where people can be annoying. Conversations between Americans are often at earsplitting volumes are always conducted right outside dorm room doors. Carry earplugs in your daysack.

Assorted tips:

Keep your daysack clipped to your bed at night. Then you can reach your earplugs, phone+earphones (you need choons when other people are screwing), and to get to your bathroom supplies.

Be a member of VIP Hostels, the card is an all-purpose discount card which works in loads of places. Most aquariums and zoos have offered substantial discounts when asked. Sometimes the admission is anything up to $25 and I’ve blagged $10 off. Totally worth it.

Some hostels don’t provide plates, cups and cutlery unless you hire it. Either have your own or be prepared to stump up for a set. Some hostels even keep pots and pans behind the reception desk and you have to go and ask for each item you need. Very irritating, but they’d only get nicked if they didn’t.

Try to buy canned food with ring-pulls on the cans. Lots of hostels have bench-mounted can openers, but if they don’t, there won’t be a can opener for miles.

Another useful thing to have is a locking tupperware box for food spares. It’s tricky to cook for just one person, so you can store leftovers. A stock of elastic bands is also wicked handy for tying up your rice and pasta bags. Those feckers get everywhere.

Travel towels are okay. Mine folds up to nothing and takes up no space, it dries in no time and is very light. On the downside, you feel like you’re drying yourself with a tablecloth. Carrying a normal towel is much more luxurious but they’re not small and dry slowly. Discuss.

A compass is useful for British travellers. Nothing fancy, my souvenir compass (thanks Sarah!) has come in very handy. We Brits do get confused in grid cities, where NSEW directions are the only way to get around. I’m not the only pom who finds this - our methods of navigating our tangled, senseless cities (by landmark and waypoint) don’t work so well in places like Brisbane. You’re often going 180 degrees the wrong direction. Simplicity can be confusing. Perhaps I’m just an idiot?

If you’re a big drinker, you’ll love Australia and the whole backpacking scene. In this case, the above tips apply doubly. Everyone’s sick of the pisshead crashing into the dorm at 4am, turning on the lights, bawling into their mobile, falling over stuff on the floor and leaving the door open. Seriously, get lost. I’m going to stab the next one in the face.

Frenh people smoke in the kitchen.  Punch them.

Anyway that’s enough for now, I might write some more at a later date. If someone asks. Thanks for reading.

Yes I’m still in Perth and it’s still cold!  After four weeks of luxury, I’ve moved out of Chrissie’s house in the ‘burbs as she’s moving to the east coast to start a new life in government accountancy.  It’s been quiet and comfortable and I’m very grateful for being put up for free for nearly a month. So, it’s back to the hostel life!  I hit Woolworths* today and stocked up on food, and I’ll need to remember how to cook.  The job search is ongoing, but I hope to work the reception desk at the hostel in exchange for lodgings, so at least that’ll keep my outgoings down for a while.  I’ve had one shift’s work unloading shipping containers at a distribution warehouse, which has helped.

I’ve registered with ten agencies now, and applied for any number of jobs in the newspaper, but it seems Whinging Poms are not popular - especially on working holiday visas!  Employers tend to be skeptical about backpackers claiming they want six months’ work, as apparently most of them disappear after three weeks.  And of course, there’s the global recession to worry about, so most jobs go straight to True Blue Aussies.

Anyhoo, what can I tell you about Perth?  Well, as my roommate said, it’s the “city that sleeps”.  The main social districts are allegedly Northbridge and Subiaco, but I tell you what, the latter is totally overhyped.  Nothing but closed shoe shops, and the two bars I could find that were open only appeared to be open to people in suits.  NOT welcoming at all.  On the upside I did find a bar near the railway station entrance which had a live band on and sold Peroni, albeit at over $9 a pint.

Northbridge is much better, but even so there are more pubs in Worcester town centre than here in Perth.  There doesn’t seem to be a main drag of drinking joints, but they are at least within walking distance.  This is definitely more of a restaurant town.
Perth sleeps.  The majority of pubs are only open Thurs-Fri-Sat…not even Sunday.    Huge numbers of places are closed midweek which means you’re stuck indoors watching TV or reading.  The people here seem to be either construction labourers OR white collar accountants, or lawyers, but nothing else.  You either wear a hi-vis or a pinstripe suit.  I’ve not seen any girls wearing informal clothes except the backpackers, of which there are precious few during winter.

I envy you swines in the UK enjoying your heatwave.  It’s freakin’ COLD here!  My hostel room is at the shady end of the building too, so it’s especially nippy!  The upside is that the hostel is quiet at this time of year, so I don’t have to fight for pots and pans in the kitchen!

Tomorrow’s itinerary consists of getting up, getting some training on reception, then back to the job hunt.  Wish me luck!

*Woolworths in Australia is actually a Tesco-esque supermarket, and still in business!

But I aint complaining.  I’m a fair way down south so it gets pretty cold at night, but the climate is still predictable enough to let us plan for a barbecue.  Last night’s was good fun.  I’m staying here with a pommie friend, Christina, and her chap Mick in the suburb of Midland, on the far fringes of Perth.  They’ve made me very welcome and I have some great creature comforts here.   Perth city centre is about 20 minutes away by train, and the public transport is really excellent here.

Perth is a huge city by my standards, and very spread out.  In the state of West Australia there are 1.8 million people, 1.3 million of which live in Perth and it’s surrounding districts.  It sounds normal enough, but when you realise the UK and Germany will fit into WA several times over, it becomes clear that this neck of the woods is virtually uninhabited.  It’s huge.

Perth itself has some nice old buildings, including a mock-Londonesque shopping mall called London Gate.  It’s right in the centre of the CBD and pretty cute, but couldn’t possibly be a slice of London.  It’s been planned out for a start!  The local rag, the West Australian, is full of jobs so I’m hopeful I might find something in the next week or so.  I’ve applied for several jobs but my only lead has come from the agency Manpower, who looked after me very well for three years back home.
So far I’ve been to the AQWA Aquarium, Fremantle and it’s market and “Cappuchino strip”, King’s Park, and had a $9 pint in Subiaco, the glitzy district.  Luckily Halifax let me transfer a chunk of money into my Aussie bank account so I won’t starve for another week, at least.  We had a barbecue at Christina’s place last night, met a couple of cool people and ate loads of meat.

I still mean to visit Rottnest Island and stroke a Quokka.  I’ll take photos if I meet one!
Until next time…

Hi folks!  Well it’s about time I updated my blog.  I think the last post was from work-haven Mackay, which seems like a lifetime ago.

Since then I’ve moved north, clubbed in beautiful Airlie Beach and Cairns, driven 1900 miles to Darwin in a Transit motorhome, camped in Kakadu national park with some French peeps, and I’ve flown down south now to Perth.  It’s involved some serious driving and some great times.  Several nights in Cairns and Darwin have been spent with German crowds filling my travel journal with vulgar, but hilarious, German phrases.  I’ve been hanging out with travel buddy Philipp, an extremely decent guy from a town south of Berlin.   Also in Cairns I made friends with the adorable, pint-sized guitar hero Anja, who I’m convinced will shoot to fame once she gets home.  Mainly because she’s stunning.
I now have a shiny replacement camera thanks to JB HiFi Cairns, who shipped the replacement from the northeast corner of Australia down to the southwest corner in the space of 4 days!  Skydiving was fantastic, a great way to cheer myself up after a rotten time on Fraser Island, stuck camping with some vile characters.  Luckily the excellent NEXT Backpackers hostel in Hervey Bay (where camping tours to Fraser launch from) is run by a pleasant fella who fed me free beer in exchange for signing up for the dive with him.
Phillip and I also hired a car in Cairns, and drove up to Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas, before our epic/opportune trip across the outback to Darwin.  In Douglas I managed to hook up with my stepbrother Lloyd, who I found thanks to a series of convenient coincidences.  Port Douglas is utterly gorgeous, I’m very jealous that he secured work there!   

Anyhow, a bit about Australia. This is the land of barbecues and the V8 Supercars Championships, of tourism and backpacking, of surfing and skydiving.  I tried to make lists of stuff I love and hate:

Australia Rocks

People stop their cars to let you cross roads
Queensland gets 300 days of sunshine a year
HSV Clubsport 327, Ford Falcon XR8, lots of lovely ozzie cars!  Utes!
Public free to use barbecues.  Everywhere.
Lagoon Parks…with barbecues
Walking trails everywhere
No graffiti, clean streets!  Or council-sponsored graffiti to colour things up.
Brothels are legal.  
Koalas! Kangaroos!  Quaggas!  They’re real and hilarious.
Toohey’s Extra Dry, a beer as good as Julbrew.  Top Quality. And $9.50 a jugful at Melaleuca hostel in Darwin.
Canned drinks are bigger than our 330Ml
Roads are straight and wide, parking everywhere, usually free!  You can see for 2-3 miles so you know overtaking is safe.  We Brits can’t make straight roads to save our lives.
Internet cafe’s everywhere
Free zoos, free parks, boardwalks and fitness equipment on the streetside.
Termite mounds.  They get up to 7 metres tall.  Spectacular.
Aussie people: “G’day mate, how ya goin?”
They maximise on coastal beauty.  Every town has a coastal Esplanade (Promenade) with a long walking trail, and it’s usually where the lagoon park is, where the backpackers and locals come to picnic and swim.  In Cairns, there is even free live music.
Hostels are super popular, and cheap to stay in. 

Australia Sucks
Well, actually it doesn’t.  But I HAD to think of some downsides so as to make this less depressing for folks at home.

Chocolate is phenominally expensive: $2.50 for a Mars bar.  Ouch.
School uniforms are laugh-out-loud ridiculous
Mosquito bites.  I’m still scratching and bleeding a week after Kakadu :o( 
It’s full of 18-year-old backpackers getting shitfaced and keeping everyone awake. This is actually not a good thing, because there’s only so many drinking games you can play with idiots who can’t clean up after themselves or cook anything but noodles.

So far my favourite spot has been Airlie Beach.  It doesn’t actually have much of a beach, but has a stonking lagoon park, great sunsets, bbq’s everywhere.  I had a great time clubbing here with a German friend, Ronny.  We teamed up to chat up Dutch and Swedish girls (awesome fun even if we didn’t get anywhere) and danced our asses off in Mama Africa’s.  I didn’t have the money for the Whitsunday cruise-don’t yell at me-but did soak up some of the local beauty of the Whitsunday Pass from the lookouts in the Conway National Park, on a good walking trail.

I spent a week or so in Cairns, backpacker central on the east coast.  I stayed at shabby but extremely social hostel Asylum ($90 a WEEK!) and living here is cheap due to the free food peddled by the local bars:  Woolshed, Rhinobar and a couple more.  Another thing they do here in Oz is drinking games and quizzes in the pubs, where you can win free beers, or jugs or beer, or money, by depraving yourself in all sorts of ways.  This worked well in Darwin where my French, German and Israeli camping friends teamed up, and we won top prize, a $75 bar tab.
We got drunk.  Sometimes I wonder how I remember to get my contact lenses out.
Very drunk.

Anyway as I said I’m now in Perth, West Australia, where it’s colder but still pleasant.  I’m staying with Christina, one of Sarah’s travel friends, in the suburb of Midland.  The work situation is a lot more convincing here, the local newspaper jammed with offers.  Perth is a very big and spread out city but the trains and public transport is excellent, I’m looking forward to holing up here for six months.

Once the summer approaches and I have money in the bank, perhaps I can buy or lease-hire a monster car and drive the Great Ocean Road, and then on into New Zealand.
  Must save up for an Aussie car.  Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) and Ford Performance Vehicles (FPV) are very Aussie brands and output some smashing looking pre-modded motors.