We packed up our little home in Calga in the Wildlife Park, cleaned it all ready for the new ISV group who are arriving tomorrow! It was freezing cold living there (i've never drunk sooo much tea to keep warm in my life) and every morning was a 6.30am rise but its kind of sad to leave! Nick the park ranger came to say bye to us and thank us for our hard work and played us this classic Aussie song called True Blue whilst we all sang along waving Aussie flags, some people got quite emotional to leave! But off we did leave to the airport....we accidently arrived 3 hours early so had to wait around a while before we could check-in our bags but then we were into departures. We had a group hug with our leader Alicia and all promised to keep in touch....ahh the wonders of facebook!She got us to all sign an Aussie photo book for her about our memories of the trip whichw as sweet!I didnt realise you were allowed to bring water through customs on a domestic flight so was chucking my litre bottle with Briana like mad before i put it through the conveyor belt scanner thing. The security guard found it hilarious how much we panicked about ringing water through to the departure lounge,lol!
We flew from Sydney to cairns and got to the hostel just in time for a night out. The hostel is amazing its like an ibiza hotel with a pool, bar and pretty decent hotel looking rooms just with bunk beds. Im sharing with Lou, Briana and some cool american girls i havent met face to face yet but had spoken to on facebook before we came to oz. Me and the girls went to Gilliagns (our hostel) bar all night and met some pretty cool people, we got quite drunk too as they do a nightly 2 4 1 offer on drinks...uh oh lol! We met a cool group of people and went to another bar with them called the Woolshed where everyone dances on the bar and on tables...fun :) Cairns is like the miami of america and the ibiza of europe.....everyone goes there from australia! Free drinks were not a problem all night...even girls buy you drinks out here lol!got home pretty late and smashed!! Should be interesting waking up for out 6.30am breakfast tomorrow :s
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Thursday 5th August.....last day at the wildlife park :(
We got to do more cool things today like feed the koalas, clean out Ali the Wombat and the bilbies enclosures. And we were all on ahigh today excited to fly to Cairns tomorrow....finally some hot tropical weather wooohooo :We did a few boring tasks like weeding and sweeping paths etc and we were going to plant grass seeds in a cordenned off area for it to grow to feed the knagaroos but it was sooomuch effort to bring the water to water it from the visitors center that we all formed a circle and as we only had 15mins left of our lst day of work we all swung our arms around and yelled 'fuck that' in unison...wooohoooo no more work, time to play in cairns :D
We had a good last night with a staff and ISV BBQ, i had a vege burger and a vegetable skewer which was nice....i've had some meat out here in oz but actually favour vege stuff just incase of food poisoning!
We had a few drinks, me and Lou shared a bottloe of red wine Briana had white wine and bridget had a bottle of vodka. I dont think she drinks that much because she got steaming off a couple of glasses and then got waaaaay too drunk after one of the park rangers Rodney bought us a bottle of Bundenburg....whisky to shot with him :s
Basically we ended up staying up with her all night whiloe she threw up in her bunk bed and we had to clean up....nice :s I was making her make herself sick over the toilet for about an hour tog et it all out her system! It was a fun night other than that though...we played taboo and 'never have i ever'....dangerous game hahaa especially when drunk!we all played Bouncing and Dancing the irish's made up game drunk which was fun and hilarious!
Good last night :)
We had a good last night with a staff and ISV BBQ, i had a vege burger and a vegetable skewer which was nice....i've had some meat out here in oz but actually favour vege stuff just incase of food poisoning!
We had a few drinks, me and Lou shared a bottloe of red wine Briana had white wine and bridget had a bottle of vodka. I dont think she drinks that much because she got steaming off a couple of glasses and then got waaaaay too drunk after one of the park rangers Rodney bought us a bottle of Bundenburg....whisky to shot with him :s
Basically we ended up staying up with her all night whiloe she threw up in her bunk bed and we had to clean up....nice :s I was making her make herself sick over the toilet for about an hour tog et it all out her system! It was a fun night other than that though...we played taboo and 'never have i ever'....dangerous game hahaa especially when drunk!we all played Bouncing and Dancing the irish's made up game drunk which was fun and hilarious!
Good last night :)
Weds 4th August....sun yaaay :)
Was a lush warm day today......we went on a permimeter hike aroyund the fence of the park having to dig holes to lay bait for the wild dog that got inot the wildlife park and is killnig all the small wallabies!
Our group have apparently worked alot harder than any other ISV group in the park so they are actually starting to run out of jobs for us to do.
We split into groups in the after noon. I went with Briana, Bridget and Sarah to feed the koala's, bilbys wombat and dingoes with Tom the park ranger. He's a laugh and alot more relaxed than the other wildlife park staff. We got to play wuith all the animals.....clean out their enclosures and intereact with them :) It was amazinggg!!
It was starve day for the dingoes to keep it as natural and wild as possible as not every day in of the week wild dingoes find food! However this ment they were going a little crazy and were wanting any food they could get their hands on. They are this gorgeous snowy white colour, kind of like huskys! They were pelting it round and round their enclosure and trynig to eat and dig up the trees we were planting for them! Tom locked us in while he went to give a reptile talk to park visitors so we were dodging out the way of diving dingoes everywhere,lol! We didnt finish planting the trees until 4.30pm which was 30mins after we usually finish work but it was fun anyway!
We finally got back to our hut and popped to Gosford to buy things for our final dinner tomorrow night....an aussie BBQ :) After dinner we watched a film called Samson and Delila about an aboriginal youngcouple...uits kind of depressing they get beaten, attacked and left homeless and get into drugs....apparently a typical aboriginal story since they have been removed from the desert and isolated from normal society in towns.
We went back to the hut and played taboo whichw as fun...however this one girl Zoe who is abit of a loner went and lit a campfire by herself.....then when none of uis realised she had been up there for 2 hours she made this big deal about us leaving her out or something! we just assumed she'd gone to bed up in the tents where she chose to sleep on her own! she likes to throw pity parties for herself and i actually saw her write down 'a massively depressive person' about her self in her journal the other day before she burst into tears for no reason :s keep her away from the knives maybe :s
Our leader and the 3 irish came home and had a go at us for leaving zoe on her own....but she'd kind of done it on purpose i think to cut her nose off to spite her face! Any way one of the irish boys Dave is superrrr aggressive and rough...he basially targetted me and had a rightgo at me for being such a selfish self-centred person and that everythings all me me meee....i argued back and told him to get the stick out of his arse and what the hell was his problem etc......and he said he was only having a go at me coz im the only person who actually bothered standing up to him!....after an awkwards 20min silence between us he apoligised for losing his temper for no reason...maybe keep the knives away from him too lol! Im not going to let it get to me thoguh as im having a great time and he's just a looney who probs need help for his temper problem! tomorrow is our last days work in the park...its gone sooo faast :( but im sooooo looknig forward to the next 2 weeks partying and doing cool adventure things like diving in the coral reef, and skydiving :D
Our group have apparently worked alot harder than any other ISV group in the park so they are actually starting to run out of jobs for us to do.
We split into groups in the after noon. I went with Briana, Bridget and Sarah to feed the koala's, bilbys wombat and dingoes with Tom the park ranger. He's a laugh and alot more relaxed than the other wildlife park staff. We got to play wuith all the animals.....clean out their enclosures and intereact with them :) It was amazinggg!!
It was starve day for the dingoes to keep it as natural and wild as possible as not every day in of the week wild dingoes find food! However this ment they were going a little crazy and were wanting any food they could get their hands on. They are this gorgeous snowy white colour, kind of like huskys! They were pelting it round and round their enclosure and trynig to eat and dig up the trees we were planting for them! Tom locked us in while he went to give a reptile talk to park visitors so we were dodging out the way of diving dingoes everywhere,lol! We didnt finish planting the trees until 4.30pm which was 30mins after we usually finish work but it was fun anyway!
We finally got back to our hut and popped to Gosford to buy things for our final dinner tomorrow night....an aussie BBQ :) After dinner we watched a film called Samson and Delila about an aboriginal youngcouple...uits kind of depressing they get beaten, attacked and left homeless and get into drugs....apparently a typical aboriginal story since they have been removed from the desert and isolated from normal society in towns.
We went back to the hut and played taboo whichw as fun...however this one girl Zoe who is abit of a loner went and lit a campfire by herself.....then when none of uis realised she had been up there for 2 hours she made this big deal about us leaving her out or something! we just assumed she'd gone to bed up in the tents where she chose to sleep on her own! she likes to throw pity parties for herself and i actually saw her write down 'a massively depressive person' about her self in her journal the other day before she burst into tears for no reason :s keep her away from the knives maybe :s
Our leader and the 3 irish came home and had a go at us for leaving zoe on her own....but she'd kind of done it on purpose i think to cut her nose off to spite her face! Any way one of the irish boys Dave is superrrr aggressive and rough...he basially targetted me and had a rightgo at me for being such a selfish self-centred person and that everythings all me me meee....i argued back and told him to get the stick out of his arse and what the hell was his problem etc......and he said he was only having a go at me coz im the only person who actually bothered standing up to him!....after an awkwards 20min silence between us he apoligised for losing his temper for no reason...maybe keep the knives away from him too lol! Im not going to let it get to me thoguh as im having a great time and he's just a looney who probs need help for his temper problem! tomorrow is our last days work in the park...its gone sooo faast :( but im sooooo looknig forward to the next 2 weeks partying and doing cool adventure things like diving in the coral reef, and skydiving :D
Tuesday 3rd August......raaaainnn :(
We woke up to it absolutely tipping down today.....last time it rained we were made to just work through it but even Alicia our leader who is usually super motivated to help the environment any way we can refused to work in it! One of the park rangers is a bit of a 'kitchen nazi' as the head of the park calls her and had a go at us for leaving it in a mess again.....last time she complained because thgere were 2 baked beans on plug hole.......today we apparently left a food stain on the stove! I personally cleaned that stove and scoured it and removed stains that weren't even made by us!
So anyway we played card games like Uno and 'who done it' murder games. I was thre murderer and was sooo bad at bluffing everyone suspected me straight away lol! This kind of reminds me of family camping holidays in france when you make the most of card games etc when its raining,lol!
Every now and then 3 people at a time whobe asked to do an easy job or do some cleaning etc. My job with Darragh, Dave and Danielle (the irish) was to sweep all the spiders and spoider eggs off the tent flaps in the camping part of the wildlife park. There were only 7 tents so it was too bad a job however we did come across some pretty nasty spiders. A wolf Spider, A huntsman, A black Widow and a red back one. Most of these are venemous or make you reallly sick if they bite you. One of them rots your flesh around where it has bitten :s
I made sure my gloves were done up reallllly tight! I cant beleive people actually sleep in these tents with these things crawling on the outside :s
The rain finally stopped by 11am so we were able to get to work properly. We split into groups and me and a couple of others went of with Tom one of the park rangers. He got us to feed the koala bears their eucalyptus leaves, few ali ther Wombat her vegetables, dug sand to put in the Bilby's enclosures and got to have a look at a nocturnal Bilby for the first time...they look like snuggled up cutre rabbits when they sleep then they lift their heads and they have these long ugly snouts and razor sharp teeth :s
We also got to hold the pythons while Rodney (another park ranger and general maintence man) fitted new heat lamps int heir enclosures.
It was a fun day and the first proper day we actually got to feed and play with the aussie wildlife. Quite a few people in the group are starting to get flu-y now from the hard work and cold weather but hopefully fingers crossed i'll be fine! I came over to oz with a mild case of tonsillitis and the doc gave me anti-biotics which i never took so i have them on standby if i need them!
I have loads of energy in the mornings but get knackered by 7pm at night....must be the jetlag! We rushed to the internet cafe after work but Alicia said we could only stay 30mins so i paid the $2 and started tryign to upload my photos...then just as they were about to load my 30mins was up grrr what a waste of time!
We got back to the park and it was me, briana, bridget and zoe cooking! we decided we needed some comfort food so between the 4 of us we cooked a big english/american breakfast! Bacon, eggs,sausage,beans, toast, mushrooms,grilled tomato, pancakes. The americans put weird sweet things with savoury things so they soaked the breakfast in maple syrup ewwww! They love peanut butter with everything in sandwiches....bananas, honey, jam :s
No wonder america has an obesity problem!
We sat down after dinner to watch an aussie sitcom called The Castle.....its kind of like The Royal Family....quite funny!
Todays was fun....me, Briana, Melissa, Bridget and Sarah played a prank on everyone else when we were working with Tom and persuaded them to eat termites becasue 'we just had'......we took fake photos of us eatting them and showed everyone! Alicia, Zoe and Danielle all took a couple to eat :s ewwwww! they are edible but i just didnt fancy that specific aussie delicacy!
So anyway we played card games like Uno and 'who done it' murder games. I was thre murderer and was sooo bad at bluffing everyone suspected me straight away lol! This kind of reminds me of family camping holidays in france when you make the most of card games etc when its raining,lol!
Every now and then 3 people at a time whobe asked to do an easy job or do some cleaning etc. My job with Darragh, Dave and Danielle (the irish) was to sweep all the spiders and spoider eggs off the tent flaps in the camping part of the wildlife park. There were only 7 tents so it was too bad a job however we did come across some pretty nasty spiders. A wolf Spider, A huntsman, A black Widow and a red back one. Most of these are venemous or make you reallly sick if they bite you. One of them rots your flesh around where it has bitten :s
I made sure my gloves were done up reallllly tight! I cant beleive people actually sleep in these tents with these things crawling on the outside :s
The rain finally stopped by 11am so we were able to get to work properly. We split into groups and me and a couple of others went of with Tom one of the park rangers. He got us to feed the koala bears their eucalyptus leaves, few ali ther Wombat her vegetables, dug sand to put in the Bilby's enclosures and got to have a look at a nocturnal Bilby for the first time...they look like snuggled up cutre rabbits when they sleep then they lift their heads and they have these long ugly snouts and razor sharp teeth :s
We also got to hold the pythons while Rodney (another park ranger and general maintence man) fitted new heat lamps int heir enclosures.
It was a fun day and the first proper day we actually got to feed and play with the aussie wildlife. Quite a few people in the group are starting to get flu-y now from the hard work and cold weather but hopefully fingers crossed i'll be fine! I came over to oz with a mild case of tonsillitis and the doc gave me anti-biotics which i never took so i have them on standby if i need them!
I have loads of energy in the mornings but get knackered by 7pm at night....must be the jetlag! We rushed to the internet cafe after work but Alicia said we could only stay 30mins so i paid the $2 and started tryign to upload my photos...then just as they were about to load my 30mins was up grrr what a waste of time!
We got back to the park and it was me, briana, bridget and zoe cooking! we decided we needed some comfort food so between the 4 of us we cooked a big english/american breakfast! Bacon, eggs,sausage,beans, toast, mushrooms,grilled tomato, pancakes. The americans put weird sweet things with savoury things so they soaked the breakfast in maple syrup ewwww! They love peanut butter with everything in sandwiches....bananas, honey, jam :s
No wonder america has an obesity problem!
We sat down after dinner to watch an aussie sitcom called The Castle.....its kind of like The Royal Family....quite funny!
Todays was fun....me, Briana, Melissa, Bridget and Sarah played a prank on everyone else when we were working with Tom and persuaded them to eat termites becasue 'we just had'......we took fake photos of us eatting them and showed everyone! Alicia, Zoe and Danielle all took a couple to eat :s ewwwww! they are edible but i just didnt fancy that specific aussie delicacy!
Monday 2nd August.....back to the Wildlife Park!
Woke up at 6.30am as per usual work day.....its soooo cold in Calga compared to Sydney! i cant wait to make it to Cairns and the tropical climate on Friday! Still i kept positive and did star jumps to keep warm....and try lose weight from all the alcohol i drank this weekend! After the morning coldness the sun came out and actually got quite warm while we were working! Today me, Louisa and one of the gay irish guys Darragh worked together sweeping leaves off a path and making it more suitable to visitors to the park to walk around! I made up a sweeping exercise routine for us called cardio-sweep....it actually worked quite good! Lunge....sweep sweep sweep...lunge sweep sweep sweep lol!
The detox is gonig well...i ate an apple and a tuna salad wrap for lunch! Us 3 swept the path all day and was actuyally a right laugh having a gossip between us three and swapping stories and drunken moments!
After work finished at 4pm me and my leader Alicia (who's only 23) went to the shops and bought all our grocery's for the week! we gety given $500 a week for food for all 12 of us...however for some reason after buying everything we needed for 3 meals a day we had $300 left over so we went round and bought loads of chocoaltes, sweets, popcorn, icecream, timtams (kind of like a penguin biscuit which every aussie loves), Anzac cookies and other treats :) So much for the diet,lol!
Tonight we had rice, vegetables and chicken teriyaki pieces, then we watched a film/documentary called Contact about the last ever Real Aboriginal tribe who were discovered living in the desert in 1967. It was really interesting but the weekend had knackered me so a few of us started falling asleep halfway through! Its been interesting learning about the aboriginees, their culture and way of life in the past and these days!
We get sooo kanckered by the physical work during our volunteering around the park that we all get to sleep before 10pm every night....bring on Cairns and the partying on Friday woohooo :D
The detox is gonig well...i ate an apple and a tuna salad wrap for lunch! Us 3 swept the path all day and was actuyally a right laugh having a gossip between us three and swapping stories and drunken moments!
After work finished at 4pm me and my leader Alicia (who's only 23) went to the shops and bought all our grocery's for the week! we gety given $500 a week for food for all 12 of us...however for some reason after buying everything we needed for 3 meals a day we had $300 left over so we went round and bought loads of chocoaltes, sweets, popcorn, icecream, timtams (kind of like a penguin biscuit which every aussie loves), Anzac cookies and other treats :) So much for the diet,lol!
Tonight we had rice, vegetables and chicken teriyaki pieces, then we watched a film/documentary called Contact about the last ever Real Aboriginal tribe who were discovered living in the desert in 1967. It was really interesting but the weekend had knackered me so a few of us started falling asleep halfway through! Its been interesting learning about the aboriginees, their culture and way of life in the past and these days!
We get sooo kanckered by the physical work during our volunteering around the park that we all get to sleep before 10pm every night....bring on Cairns and the partying on Friday woohooo :D
Sunday 1st August....Sydney
Had a hell of a night out in Sydney last night with Pru and ther girls....we were a tad bit hungover when we had to checkout of Wake Up! hostel at 10am! I got my daily brekkie of Raisan Toast......my new addiction from australia, to start the day!
We met Brianna's guy friend from last night and all decided to go on a ferry trip to a place called Manly which has a spectacular beach and is a really cool place to just hang out!
It was pretty similar to the Ellis Island ferry in New york.....in the fact you get picturesque photos of the sydney harbour bridge and opera house from the boat! Me and the girls had a laugh reminising about our antics from last night in cluding the multiple tequila shots we had bought for us,lol!
Manly was amazing...it had lots of shops restaurants and cafes over looking the beach with skyrise apartments that propably cost a bomb! maybe i'll live in one oneday!
We stayed in Manly about 2 hours then got back on the ferry after a much deserved hangover subway mmmm :)
we had the funniest ferry ride....i kept popping out to take photos and totally got disorientated when i popped back to my seat and thought the girls had left me so i legged it down the other end of the boat to where i thought we were sitting to find the girls had gone......they were actually running behind me laughing their heads off at how id just sprinted past our seats to go to the wrong end of the boat ooops! Jack Brianna's friend did the same when he popped to the toilet, he thought we had quickly made a dash to get away from him......confusing looking boat!
Once we docked we took the free bus back to the hostel, got our bags and made our way to the train station....grabbing a few krispy kremem doughnuts each first yummmmmm :) we were all pretty knackered on the train and still slightly hungover but had THE best time in Sydney! I especially enjoyed meeting up with my family and have promised them i will be back VERY soon :)
We need to detox tomorrow after everythnig we drank last night.....
Some drunk guy 9from the nearby creepy town called Gosford) was on our train shouting racist slurs to these 2 asian girls which was abit awkward ....typical Gosford man!
When we got back to Gosford it was soooooo cold compared to Sydney :( Back to work tomorrow!!!
We met Brianna's guy friend from last night and all decided to go on a ferry trip to a place called Manly which has a spectacular beach and is a really cool place to just hang out!
It was pretty similar to the Ellis Island ferry in New york.....in the fact you get picturesque photos of the sydney harbour bridge and opera house from the boat! Me and the girls had a laugh reminising about our antics from last night in cluding the multiple tequila shots we had bought for us,lol!
Manly was amazing...it had lots of shops restaurants and cafes over looking the beach with skyrise apartments that propably cost a bomb! maybe i'll live in one oneday!
We stayed in Manly about 2 hours then got back on the ferry after a much deserved hangover subway mmmm :)
we had the funniest ferry ride....i kept popping out to take photos and totally got disorientated when i popped back to my seat and thought the girls had left me so i legged it down the other end of the boat to where i thought we were sitting to find the girls had gone......they were actually running behind me laughing their heads off at how id just sprinted past our seats to go to the wrong end of the boat ooops! Jack Brianna's friend did the same when he popped to the toilet, he thought we had quickly made a dash to get away from him......confusing looking boat!
Once we docked we took the free bus back to the hostel, got our bags and made our way to the train station....grabbing a few krispy kremem doughnuts each first yummmmmm :) we were all pretty knackered on the train and still slightly hungover but had THE best time in Sydney! I especially enjoyed meeting up with my family and have promised them i will be back VERY soon :)
We need to detox tomorrow after everythnig we drank last night.....
Some drunk guy 9from the nearby creepy town called Gosford) was on our train shouting racist slurs to these 2 asian girls which was abit awkward ....typical Gosford man!
When we got back to Gosford it was soooooo cold compared to Sydney :( Back to work tomorrow!!!
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