News and stuff

So it's a while since I've done one of these! Sorry about that, if you care.

Life is all good in Perth at the moment. Job is ticking along and I'm hoping to get another contract after the first 6 weeks is up. May get a longer one too so that'd be all good. I don't get holiday pay but I get a higher wage as a result so I'm pulling in about $AUS1400 a fortnight, so more than I was getting in NZ! Can't complain about that. Actually I saw a Brit from the hostel we stayed at the other day, and he got really pissed off that I was getting paid more than him to 'pack peanuts'. Poor bastard.

Sticking with the British Isles, there's a ship load of Irish over here, and they're pretty animal. They get on the bevvies a lot and half the time you can't understand what they're saying. Some people were walking behind me the other day and I was trying to figure out what language they were speaking - something Eastern European I thought. Turned out they were a couple of Irish blokes speaking English. Go figure. St Patrick's day is big over here for them too it would seem. Rosie O'Grady's, an Irish pub down the road, managed to get a section of the street closed off, had half a dozen port-a-loos outside, and had 2 queues of about 30 pissed Irishmen (and women) just hanging out to get a beer past their lips. Fiddle de dee.


Anyway hoping to get internet at home in a week or two so a bit more of this sort of blah blah blah to come hopefully.

It's not what you know...

So I finally have a job! After weeks of looking, and trying a number of different avenues, the old 'hook-ups from back home' came up trumps. I had a contact in the Western Australia Department of Food and Agriculture, who I saw when I first got to Perth. At the time he had no work going and told me to try him again in March. I was sure I'd have other work by March. After trying about a dozen recruitment agencies, applying for jobs online, calling jobs in the paper, calling people not advertising but thinking 'what the hell', and trawling the city with copies of my CV, I still didn't even have an offer of employment as a temp, or in a garden centre (and I called heaps!). Walking down the street on Monday I was feeling pretty dejected, when I remembered it was now March, and called DAFWA again. Booya! I had work the next day on a 20 day contract, with the possibility of more to come. So I am pretty stoked and very grateful for the contact.

My week ahead is filled with transferring barley seeds from big packets to smaller ones in preparation for planting. They conduct field trials breeding for disease resistance. My job isn't rocket science, but it beats worrying about how I'm going to spend the last $100 in my account!

Loophole

I have had my New Zealand restricted driving licence since October 2006, and in January I sat my test to get my full licence, which I failed (I thought maybe a tad unfairly, but that's just me...). Goodbye $120. I knew that full NZ licences could be transferred over to Australia, but did not know the rules with restricted licences, so was a bit worried that I would have to start the process from scratch. In Australia, the step after your learners licence is the provisional licence, which you have for 2 years before it flicks over to a full. What I discovered, to my delight, is that because I had had my NZ restricted for over 2 years, I was able to transfer it over to a full Australian without sitting a test. You beauty! So I guess now I am able to bring my full Aussie licence over to NZ, get it transferred, and not have to sit the test, which I have already failed.

What a loophole eh.

Nannup

Monday was Labour Day here in Western Australia, and there were quite a few concerts and events on around the state. One of those was the 20th occurrence of the Nannup Music Festival, in the small town of Nannup, about 3 hours south of Perth (longer when it's a long weekend and everyone is heading out of the city). Two of our flatmates had tickets to go, but one of them caught a stomach bug, and they felt that they couldn't really go if one of them was spraying out both ends. As it was we scored the tickets, and their friend was kind enough to drive us there and back. So on Saturday, with their tent, their primus, their tickets and their friend in tow, we hit the road for Nannup.

The festival is essentially a folk music festival, and I had only heard of one of the acts, so we weren't really sure what to expect. When we got there we were welcomed with the news that the campsite was full, despite the fact that 'our' campsites had been booked and paid for well in advance. We went down to the grounds with one of the friendly old volunteers and managed to find a couple of spots on relatively even ground. 'Riverbend', as the campsite was called, was situated next to Nannup's river, which was actually a stagnant stream that probably wasn't doing the local wildlife much good. Safe to say the togs stayed packed in our bags for the whole trip. We got our tents up with no hassles and headed back to the town to check things out.

There were a number of venues, the main one being an amphitheatre specially prepared for the event. It was located at the end of a cordoned off street lined with stalls, hippies and local kids trying to earn a buck playing Mary Had a Little Lamb on their violin. Their was some pretty good deals, and my dinner that evening of a plate of snapper, calamari, prawns and crayfish for $10 was pretty satisfying. Snapper is quite common over here, and oddly enough it is often cheaper than shark in the Fish & Chips shops. Go figure. The other venues included the local pub, the Town Hall, the Churchyard, and the some pretty inoffensive acts in the Playground for the kids. Actually the drumming monkey puppets were pretty impressive...

TinPan Orange, Nick and Liesl, Michelle Shocked and Microwave Jenny impressed. Other acts were not so much to my taste. Jez Lowe & Kate Bramley reminded us that we were at a folk music festival. I bought a CD of TinPan Orange and got them to sign it - I now know that I prefer them live but it is still a good wee CD. Other highlights were my first ever sighting of fork lightening on the drive down, the sign announcing the presence of tiger snakes in the vicinity of the campsite, the sighting of a baby snake at night (which in fact on reviewing my photos the next day turned out to be a very small lizard with very small legs - you can not imagine how disappointed I was), and the dolphins in the river at Mandurah on the drive home.

I'm not sure that I would pay to go to Nannup again, but it was a fun weekend and I enjoyed getting out of the city for a while. I think our next musical excursion will be the West Coast Blues 'n' Roots Festival in Fremantle on April 18, headlined by John Butler Trio. Hopefully neither of us get gastro.

TinPan Orange in the Town Hall

Nick and Liesl

Michelle Shocked in the amphitheatre


Folkies (Jez Lowe & Kate Bramley)


Gets my vote!

Snake!