Kalgoorlie now has competition for my Least Favourite Place in Australia So Far

Last night I spent the night in a town 180km north-east of Perth. It's name is Wongan Hills.

My work involves planting barley seeds, most of which happens in Perth (or within 30 minute's drive). Twice now I have gone away for the night, the first time being a trip south, staying in the very nice Pemberton Hotel, the other excursion being last night, to Wongan Hills.

It was not so much the trip that got to me. I get a $15 allowance for breakfast, same for lunch, and something in the region of $40 for dinner, plus an accomodation budget. Anything not spent goes in my pocket. The drive there is nice, and not too long, and the Bindoon bakery stops on the way there and back introduced me to my Favourite Bakery in Australia So Far.

Wongan itself however, well, sucks. It is a two road town, it was cold, it was wet, the soil was stony and full of doublegees that stick into your hand and leave nasty little splinters. But it was the hotel that dealt the biggest blow. My room was literally 3 metres by 4. It had a bed, a wardrobe and a little cradle to but my bag on. I got a towel and a soup. There was not heating and the door that led onto the shared balcony was letting a lovely draft in. My duvet was actually a duvet cover, and I was lucky enough to find a woollen blanket at the bottom of the old wardrobe. I fear my bed probably had bedbugs. The mattress felt more like springs that had a sheet wrapped round them. The 'facilities' were shared. Of the two showers, one's door didn't close, and the other's latch was broken. I got steak at the adjoining pub, thinking it was a fairly safe bet, but apparently 'medium-rare' in Wongan Hills is 'rare as ya can give me'. The only cider was Strongbow.

I was happy to get out of the hotel this morning. We waited 20 minutes for the bakery to open, only for me to have to buy 2 coffees, after managing to spill the first one all down the side of the ute. Probably my fault, I know, but I am happy to blame Wongan in this instance. More cold planting this morning, and the rain was more than happy to hang around.

I should rename this "Max's Rant Blog". Thanks for listening. Don't go to Wongan Hills. (I am, in three weeks)

Life goes on

I've been harassed a wee bit lately for not updating this. Sorry fullahs!

Soooo, I've just seen that National has withdrawn its promise of tax cuts. Can't say I'm surprised, they've been a party of schemers for quite some time now! And to call Labour a "credit card opposition" is pretty pathetic given the good surpluses Labour ran for a number of years (which of course National took no hesitation in attacking at the time). So New Zealand is going to get screwed on superannuation and the environment (and I'm sure other areas to boot) and there will be no tax cuts. Change for change's sake isn't such a good idea any more huh.

Well that's my rant. Feel free to disagree or to add to the discussion. I'm sure the letters pages in the papers back home will be pretty interesting for the next few weeks.

Back to Perth. Work is good. Planting will begin either tomorrow or next week, starting with on-site plots, then some trips to regional areas (Wongan Hills, Mount Barker, Manjimup, Katanning). After my work with the Barley pathology group drys up I should be able to get work with the wheat guys, so fingers crossed work is secure for the next couple of months.

Long weekend this weekend. Going to Fremantle prison on Saturday (it's historic, I'm not in trouble...) and maybe a wee drive on Sunday. It's good having a car, you really need one here because of the distances. plus it cuts 40 minutes off the trip to work (each way).

I have a cold right now. I guess I have no immunity to things over here. Hoping it isn't swine flu. I guess if I get it and recover I have immunity?

Not too much else to write about, life goes on. Winter hit here in 24 hours, with a pretty impressive thunderstorm - the streets were a mess with debris, but it seems to have calmed down a bit now.

Hope everyone's well. Will try and be a bit better with this!

Out.

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.