Exploring the city: Newtown

So we decided to get out and see some more of the city. After all the job hunting, apartment hunting, furniture bargains huntig... So we decided to take the train up to Newtown, which has loads of little restaurants and cool small shops.

It was raining, so we quickly decided to get a coffee somewhere. We happened to stumble upon Max Brenner, which is all about chocolate! It was very busy, but definitely worth the wait. I had a white chocolate chai latte and we ordered the chocolate fondue for two! OMG, it was so good but it also almost killed us! People who know me well, know that I can eat quite a bit. So if I say something was a lot/heavy, you know it IS.

After that, we walked along King Street(Newtown's main street), but couldn't be bothered to do some shopping because we were just way too full. We were planning to go for dinner there too, but ended up just browsing around and going home after that because of the chocolate overload! :D

Can't wait though to go back and try one of their hot chocolates, which come in this cute hug mug!

Our new crib

So for those who are curious, this is our new apartment. We still need some furniture and bits and pieces to make it more cozy, but we have the basics. We're near CBD and I can walk to work in 15 minutes, Julian needs about the same time to walk to the train station. So location-wise we are quite happy, as we don't have a car or bicycle (called push bike over here). We’re in Surry Hills, which has loads of cute little cafes and restaurants. We can also easily walk to China Town and Korea Town for yummy and inexpensive food there.

It took us quite a lot of time and effort to get this. Apartment hunting here is very different from anything we've experienced before. It is very competitive! Apartments up for lease are scheduled to be viewed by everyone at the same time, usually on Saturday mornings. Everybody comes in at the same time and has about 15 minutes to view the apartment. So most of the weekends we spent our Saturdays literally running around town to go to inspections.

If you’re interested in the apartment, the paperwork starts! You ask for application forms which you have to fill in including heaps of paperwork that you have to hand in as well. We had to make copies of passport, driver’s license, bank/credit cards, bank statements, pay slips, healthcare insurance proof. And those are just the basics, in addition to that you need at least 2 persons who are willing to recommend you (who also have to supply their full names, birth date, passport or driver’s license number and sign for approval. Try arranging that when you just got here and don’t know anyone…), and these persons cannot be family and you need a recommendation letter of your previous tenant. And all of this is just to be considered for a property!

On the spot you have people practically waving around their money to let the real estate agent know that you are seriously interested. We’ve seen people offering to pay more rent than is asked for or paying 6 months of rent in advance. It really is a lot of hassle and we’re so happy that it’s over :)

Exploring Sydney

It’s middle of the winter here, but the weather is like a nice day in Spring in the Netherlands, sunny and around 18 degrees. So not too bad at all! We visit the famous Sydney opera house, Harbour bridge, Manly beach and walk through all the cute areas around the city. The city is big and simply has a beautiful setting, the views of the city stretching out on the hills at the sea are just stunning.
After the first week Julian gets offered a job at SSI Sydney and two weeks later NaYoung starts at McCann Erickson Sydney office. We are both set for the next 6 months and we just moved into our new apartment after weeks of staying at the hostel.
We finally have a place we can call home, away from home.

World Cup Final

We don’t want to elaborate much about this subject… We arrived in Sydney the weekend of the final. It all looked so promising, we were all dressed up and gathered with hundreds of other Dutchies at the FIFA Fan Fest in Darling Harbour. There we watched the game on 3 big screens outside at 4 ‘o clock in the morning. When overtime started the sun was already coming up. After the game ended we immediately went home to sleep. Yes, we are bad losers.

Back in Perth and on to Sydney!

Now we’re in Perth about to fly to Sydney, where the “serious” stuff is going to start. Looking for a job most importantly. After traveling for almost 2 months, we are both actually looking forward to stay somewhere for a while and really experience the life there. On the road we have met so many nice people. Of course a lot of young backpackers, but what I found quite surprising that there are also a lot of older people traveling around here. We met lots of Australian couples that were on the road for a couple of years that were either pensioned or just doing temporary jobs as they were traveling. A Swiss couple we talked to had been traveling for 2 years. They drove all the way from Switzerland to Malaysia via the Mediterranean, Middle-East,India and South East Asia, and came to Australia by boat with their campervan. I think that’s so cool!
Below some more pics of our trip...

Desperate Dutchies

On the way back to Perth we stop in Geraldton, the biggest “city” on the road to Perth, we reckon that it’s our best bet to see the semi-final against Paraguay. Once we get there we go to all the hotels and bars to ask if they are showing the game (mind you over here it aired at 4:30 in the morning). None of them are open or willing to show the game. We end up going to the visitor centre to ask them for help. We are desperate and have to watch the game. They can’t find any place to show the game either, but after our suggestion of possibly renting a TV they make a couple of calls for us. Most of the campervans here have TV’s, so we thought it may be possible to rent it from a camping.

We were not expecting this: The place the visitor center referrers us
to is called Rent-a-Roo and does long term lease on electronic
appliances with an option to buy at the end of the term.
The owner is very kind and willing to help us desperate dutchies out. So for 25 dollars rent and 100 dollar bond we have a deal. The owner says we have to pick up a TV that he is delivering to a client the next day. So Julian ends up going with the guy to an electronics store. He gets to pick out a 1000 dollar brand new LG 42 inch flat screen LCD TV that they buy at the spot and load up in our campervan! Dude is crazy!! The TV takes up the whole back of our van and Na Young doesn’t even dare go into the supermarket, scared of leaving the van with that brand new TV in the back! We now have a massive pimped with a TV campervan just for the two of us to watch the game. And YES we are victorious!!! On to the final!!

Holland – Brazil

Again, football is not popular here and the café where we go to see the quarter final against Brazil closes during half time! One Dutch guy does a desperate effort to keep the place open by encouraging everybody to buy drinks, but unfortunately he isn’t successful. So we have 15 minutes to rush to a hostel to watch the rest of the game there. The Dutchies who we watched the game with in Coral Bay are also there so we had a warm welcome. We arrive in time for the 2nd half and celebrate the BIG win with a couple of drinks and a shimmy shake at the hostel’s “club”.

Exmouth: Whalesharks and humpbackwhales

This is what we wanted to do the most, snorkeling with the whale sharks! The boat we’re on is manned with a real pirate, Captain Ken, he has the parrot to prove it.
We head past the Ningaloo Reef while spotter planes look for the whalesharks and then the boat goes there very quickly. Luckily Captain Ken had one of the fastest boats of Exmouth. You get in the water with a maximum of 10 people and a guide, when you swim with the whaleshark the group splits up and swims at either side of the fish. The whalesharks here are nicknamed the party boys, they are attracted by the coral spawning and come for an easy meal. It’s usually the young males, so they are not yet full length. The biggest ones we swim with are about 9 metres long. All in all we have 4 swims with whalesharks and 1 swim with mantarays.
The first 2 swims the whalesharks are swimming quite fast and it is difficult to keep up with it. The 3rd swim we are extremely lucky, as we are alongside a very relaxed swimming whaleshark and more whalesharks join in! At one point, there are 4 of them surrounding us!! This is is so amazing, our guide is almost ecstatic seeing all of them together. It’s almost like you have to be careful not to bump into one as they gently swim around us. This is better than we could have imagined!
From the boat we can also see humbackwhales as they migrate north with their little ones. This is such an impressive sight, the whales are enormous and one of the babies is learning how to breathe and keeps on jumping out of the water!
The next day we do some hiking along the cliffs and then spend most of the day snorkeling at the Cape Range National Park, which gives easy access to the Ningaloo Reef. The best spot we went to was Turquoise Bay, where you can drift with the current over the reef. Na Young also spots a turtle and a reef shark!

Holland - Slovakia

Coral Bay has about 300 inhabitants and football is not popular over here so there was nowhere to watch the game against Slovakia. We ended up sitting outside a café who was willing to leave the TV on at night and turn it towards the window. It was quite cold at night, so we took our sleeping bags with us. We sat there with 6 Dutchies, a German and a Brazilian guy. The game wasn’t great, but we won so that’s all good.

Coral Bay: Majestic Mantarays

Going north the weather is getting warmer, we get to Coral Bay which is a small village near a nice bay where you can swim and snorkel. We book ourselves on a tour to go snorkeling with manta rays the next day. Manta rays feed on plankton and the ones we swam with were probably about 3 to 4 metres wide. Very impressive to see how they cruise the water. Definitely worth it, even though it was a very windy day and when we went out it was very cold and the sea was extremely rough. Very different from the snorkeling we did in Indonesia, where the water was warm and calm. The coral here (Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia’s equivalent to the Great Barrier Reef of the Eastern Coast) is beautiful, big and diverse kinds of corals. We see lots of turtles in the water from the boat and Julian swims alongside a turtle for 10 minutes!

Monkey Mia (Shark Bay): Feeding the dolphins

We drive further up north to Monkey Mia, another 400km along the coast, where there’s a group of wild dolphins that is fed there every morning. Nice to see the dolphins up close. The whole area (Shark Bay) is declared a World Heritage, but to be honest we did not find it that interesting. .. The part that is probably the most beautiful (Francois Peron National Park) is only accessible by 4WD, so we cannot enter with our campervan. We stay the night before on the parking lot and leave after we've seen the dolphins and the pelicans.