I’m still not sure what I’ve signed up for exactly. Sure, tree planting sounds… thrilling. But, how I got to this point might be just as exciting. The trip I’m on began four months ago, though the planning began even earlier. I’m currently in Australia on a Working Holiday Visa with the intentions to stay for a second year by doing regional work. Before coming here I was a full time journalist, lived in Vancouver, Canada and loved my life.
And, I’ve decided to start a blog. This isn’t a glorious conquest to become famous, entrail millions of followers or write a literary piece of genius. I just want others to know what it’s actually like to travel, live and work in Australia, all while living in a van—and in my opinion.
Since being here for four months my partner Sjoerd and I have covered lots of ground. About 12,000 km in our van to be exact. We touched down in Sydney and purchased a van to live in. I’ll cover the route in another post, but we travelled south towards Melbourne then went North all the way to the Daintree National Park. We’ve encountered many fun, strange, and friendly people along the way. For clarity sake, my partner and I are doing nearly everything together, but this is my blog so I will generally use “I”.
Back to where this all began. January 2017, I accepted a job working in my recently graduated field of expertise—journalism. It was one to celebrate, not just the job but also getting employment associated with my degree. And, just a few months after finishing my degree. The job was great, but a few months in I began to sink into a comfortable city life, nine-to-five, weekend warrior-style. After being a full-time student for nearly six years this was my first chance to finally afford a life style that I dreamed of.
Then about half a year into this new life I went on vacation to Europe. I went to Belgium for Tomorrowland—a festival I dreamed of going to since I was a teenager—the Netherlands, and Portugal. In Portugal I realized the reality of this new life. I had only a week there and that meant squishing in as many beaches, sightseeing, hiking, shopping, eating, drinking, and driving as I could.
While a week in one country might sound like a lot for some people, it wasn’t for me. I haven’t travelled too much but I lived in Brazil for a year when I was 16 and since then I try to spend as much time travelling so I can experience a culture, versus just vacation.
I had these same intentions for this trip to Europe, but it just wasn’t possible in the two weeks I had available for vacation. Which is normal in most of North America. So there’s me, jetlagged, (literally) sick and tired at my desk back from my vacation. I had a deep sadness knowing I would have to wait another year for a paid vacation. This wasn’t what I wanted for my life. I wanted to finish my degree and go travel, but money was always tight. And, I had student loans to pay back, so when would I ever have the opportunity to actually travel again?
On top of these sentiments I felt myself getting more and more comfortable with my city lifestyle. And not wanting to travel as much as I had in the past and I’m only 25. I felt really disappointed with myself and confused. My grandma also died the same summer and I felt really confused with what I wanted in life altogether. Should I get married? Have kids? (Um… NO WAY).
I had also never known what it felt like to not work or be in school. Working since I was 15, I didn’t know what a real break felt like. I just wanted to go away without feeling obligated of returning to work. This didn’t mean I was ready for it. All I could think of was leaving everything: my job, home, belongings and cat.
Australia was somewhere I always dreamed of going. Maybe it was the kangaroos, platypuses, koalas or Mad-Max desire to see Uluru. Or maybe a new climate to escape Vancouver’s dreadful six-months of continuous rain.
Either way this thought kept reoccurring, when I thought more about a WHV I could get as a Canadian. I finally applied for my visa and it was granted within hours. I was so happy and sad.
Mentally I couldn’t grasp such a big change. It was actually a solid six months after making the decision to leave that I refused to talk about it, to my friends and family. I was also still grieving my Grandma’s death and couldn’t imagine leaving my Grandpa alone. He was one of my favourite family members to hang out with.
Eventually though I finally worked up to confidence to tell my Grandpa I was leaving, and even threw a going-away party. It felt so good to finally have a solid support base through family and friends. It was really hard to leave. Especially because I didn’t know when I would come back.
Anyways, I survived, and coming to Australia is still one of the best decisions I’ve made.
All of these beautiful four months since then have brought me to the point of accepting a job offer—finally. For planting trees in New South Whales. This is where I’m en route to after visiting the Daintree and where this blog-journey will officially begin.
A quick note recent events. After spending a few hours in Cairns, then subsequently half a day, my partner and I knew we weren’t meant to stay there. We didn’t know if we wanted to drive 2,289 km for a two-month tree planting job.
But… we’ve been looking for second-year-visa-qualifying work seriously—as opposed to half-assed looking—for two months. And yes, this was our first serious offer. A contributing factor to this is we didn’t want to go through a contractor or hostel.
After leaving Cairns we decided to take a different route back down and visit Undara National Park. We heard of these natural, intricate lava tubes in the National Park and assumed we could visit.
It was the morning of heading to this park and as usual, on this trip, we didn’t do the right research. We camped about 18 km from the highway exit to the National Park and found out the only way to visit these lava tubes was through a guided tour which cost at least A$60 for two hours. That’s almost the same price as visiting the Australia Zoo for the day. On top of that it was almost a three-hour drive to the spot of the tours from our campsite. So, we didn’t do it.
Instead we skipped the long drive and took a shorter drive to the volcanic remains of Kalkani. There’s a 2.5 km walk around the crater with beautiful views of the valley and other ancient volcano remains. We could even see an outline of the lava tubes!
Our plan had been to drive inland until reaching our destination in New South Whales to see something different. After driving a few hours we knew it wouldn’t work. Even though Sjoerd and I take turns driving, the scenery was becoming incredibly dull.
At first it was beautiful, a mix of oak and eucalyptus (gum) trees covering the roadside. A fair share of wild life—kangaroos, eagles and more—and the red soil lit up the terrain. We even saw road trains for the first time. Until it was that same scenery for five hours straight.
Aside from the scenery, we couldn’t find any quality grocery stores. Small town grocers are as basic as possible and terribly overpriced. I needed the Woolworths reduced price section again in my life. It’ll still be over a week before arriving in NSW, lots of kilometres to travel and places to see.
