I just got an email saying I made the shortlist in my application to do a phd, which Im so pleased about! However they said they want to interview me in Leeds on the 19th. D: Really hoping theres a way round it… Philippa xx
I realise now that I forgot to mention our most eventful evening, just after we had crossed the border into south australia.
We had just pumped up the mattress, had our tea and were just putting the last of the stuff away when we saw a few tiny mice running around. Thank god we have the car, we both thought, and climbed into it to bed down for the night.
At approximately 4am though, I woke up suddenly, and was wondering why and deliberating on rolling over really slowly so as not to wake brent, when I heard that stomach churning noise of scratching coming from within the car. I laid still, hoping it had just been brent’s belly making hunger noises but no, and with a second scratching I started shaking him awake, as one does a hysteric female from the 1920’s. I shone the light in the direction of the noise and saw a rat that was at least as big as a small melon. The culprit lay in the foodbox, but after brent had opened the car door, he took so long to muster the courage to pull out the box that the rascal had escaped by the time the food box removed. (Brent reads this over my shoulder and says “Oh yeah make me look like the fucking dickhead”, however you will notice I do not mention my actions at this point in time, as I was embodying the hysteric female).
At this point we opened up all the car doors and pretty much dragged everything out, and also threw some pears and apples that were in the food box quite a way away. It would have had a more dramatic ending except this is a TRUE STORY so we guess it just escaped at some point when we didnt see. We put the food box and some other stuff back in the car and finally dropped off to sleep, after listening for any more scratching the way you listen for noises after watching too many scary films after dark.
Anyway in the morning the pears were gone, so either the mice had taken them into the depths of their nest, or the couple that were camping nearby who gave us the fruit in the first place had reclaimed them for their own. (They gave us them on the pretence of going over the border -as for some reason the government wont let you take fruit or veg over to the next state- but I secretly feel that they gave us them to bait the mice over to us).
Anyway so we are still alive, despite this experience, although brent has a tiny cut on his hand which he swears was from a mouse. The way he goes on and on about it, I hope his life is at least slightly in danger, as otherwise he needs to shattup.
xxxx
Sorry that we didnt update our blog loads, we had a bit of trouble with the car so had to drive like MAD to adelaide. You would have thought we could have sorted it all out online or something but no, we had to be in person in the office in adelaide. What I find a bit unbeleivable is that for all the documentation we had to provide, it didnt include my drivers licence, and they didnt even have to see the car. I could be an unlicenced lunatic driving round with no doors, but as long as theyve seen my passport, apparently thats OK.
Anyway, so yeah, after I spent a lot of time figuring out what I wanted to do in Margaret River, Albany, Esperance and the likes, in the end we had to miss it all out and bomb it over to adelaide before the police found us. Im really gutted about missing everything, but I guess also really glad I got the car sorted. Driving through towns and cities has gotten 40% less terrifying.
As a product of having nothing else to do, me and brent have taken to reading loads, and have each bought several books. Brent has recently finished reading the shining and is now on simon pegg’s autobiography (and keeps giggling like a girl), while I have just read 1984 and am now on frankenstein.
So yeah, we have pictures of a giant model whale, a giant model lobster, and the apparently famous “Concrete Crappa” to show you, but nothing of any major interest. Sorry! Pictures will be uploaded to facebook in a week or so, with a few good ones uploaded here too.
OH also - for the festive-curious: There are lots of traditional christmas decorations around, tinsel, santas and the like (Adelaide had like a 50 foot santa model). Also, bizzarely some people stick tinsel on their cars, and also give their cars reindeer antlers, in a way which is similar to those mini flags people get for their cars for the football world cup.
Hope everyone is well, much love, philippa xx
Hello.
A very yawny Brent and Philippa here, in 3 days we will have finished work for the time-being. Here’s an update:
Emus. These fellas regularly walk around sniffing out food while we make beds and stuff. A guy I work with told me that it’s actually the Dad that looks after them and walks around with them. Strangley enough when we ate Kangaroo and Crocodile in the restaurant, there was supposed to be grilled Emu too, but they said they didn’t have any..
When we finish work we’re headed to Melbourne via Perth, Adelaide and many more sites including a PINK LAKE and some BIG ROCKS. Then erm have a Christmas and look for work again I suppose!
Photos from ocean park aquarium. The turtles were so cute!
It keeps getting warmer and warmer here - cant wait to go south! We (actually just me because brent cba hah) have been making plans for when we go travelling down to Melbourne, and we are pretty much going to follow the coast along, going south first and then east along the southern coast. Ive been picking out all the free camp spots along the way, and trying my best to find out all the best things to see and do! We have a mobile internet usb stick now so hopefully we will update regularly with everything we have been up to when we finally do go travelling! Should be in about 3 weeks time. We are looking forward to seeing all the sights of the australian countryside, but also cant wait to spend a day or two in perth to buy a few home comforts (mainly clothes!)
Much love, Philippa xx
Heyyy, so we are in monkey mia now. The first night we stayed they put us up in the fancy guest accom, but today they moved us into a hut which is made from corrugated steel! Brent feels right at home in this new Tin Town, which the workers call “China Town”. We have so far just been relaxing after our 10 hour drive up here! We cant quite believe it was this far away…
We have been swimming in the sea which is a little bit nippy, and brent is already a bit pink from the sun, although everyone else seems to think its really cold here! I went snorkelling today and would SWEAR I saw a shark, it was about 10ft long with gills and everything, but everyone else seems to think it was a dolphin… Shame Im the only one that saw it!
Things are pretty remote round here, we are half an hour away from the nearest town, and alcohol is pretty expensive too - except I managed to get a 5litre bottle of wine for $21, not bad at all! They call the really cheap stuff goon juice.
We have been taking a few photos along the way - We will post up a few on here, but we are also uploading the whole album onto brents facebook if you fancy a looky.
Much love, brent and philippa xx
We have a job! Its up at Monkey Mia which is right next to Useless Loop! For those that I havent bored to death with about Useless Loop, you might like to know it has an international airport which looks like this:
Pretty good right? Useless loop also apparently has these dolphins which catch fish swimming in the shallow water by jumping out of the water and pretty much surf along on their bellies and catch the fish in their mouth. Apparently there is also a (less famous than the great barrier) reef that is only a small distance off the coast of western australia, around near where we will be, and I cant wait to get my snorkel out! :D
Anyway, the job itself is just housekeeping for a resort, so I assume cleaning rooms and that, but its pays $20 an hour, so we should have saved up enough in a couple of months to have a nice little christmas, maybe in melbourne or something! We want to do a bit of sightseeing south of perth too, so we shall see where the money and oout 1991 Subaru get us! We had to get a special phone that will hopefully have signal in remote areas, so hopefully we will be able to stay blogging, or at least confirm our wellbeing on facebook.
Love Philippa xx
Hi everyone
We’re in Perth now (have been since saturday) and things are starting to look a bit better after a bit of a crappy start. Our hostel decided they had no knowledge of our booking, but because we’d already paid they put us up somewhere else. We now have a car, that came with camping equipment and a mattress, that can fit in the back if we put the seats down. We are currently searching for work all over the place, we’re both a bit sick of sitting in a dorm room with no money, we’re raring to go start work and earn money. I would be putting lots of pictures here but the library computers won’t let me, so that will happen soon. On saturday our paid hostel nights run out so if we don’t have a job by then, we’ll either have to book again or find another place, or live in our car. (The car in my opinion looks like a DeLorean, which is you know, awesome.)
Will update soon
Brent
So we are really really tired. And not staying in the global backpackers for some very ridiculous reasons. I could go into a big rant about how much I would like to kick the hostel woman in the face, but I wont. For anyone thats wondering though, I can assure you we are alive, although dont feel too good! Quite seriously considering buying a motorhome to live in to save money and not have to deal with crap reception staff.
I look at brent for something else to say but all I see is a very sleepy face.
From Philippa x
Hello from Singapore.
We are currently sat waiting for our second flight to Perth and are both very very very very sleepy. Too many babies for one flight. Not enough bins to put babies in. Food is rare but good when it happens, and Singapore Airport has a Butterfly Garden that puts Leeds’ Tropical world to shame. Got many photos of that and more to come in the next few days. Now we are going to kill another 7 hours by playing count the chairs and maybe a few drinks. We have tryouts for Crocodile wrestling tomorrow at 8am, so if that goes wrong we’ll be typing a lot slower without an arm. Too tired to make sense of anything. Bye!
From Brent with input from Philippa. x
