Adventures Are Full of Mis-Adventures Part 1

Today I am breathing fresh air! It's Saturday morning here in Australia and the tides for me are turning. I am feeling relieved and invigorated to be catching a train leaving Mildura, Victoria after 2 painfully slow weeks in a town of teenie boppers and elderly.

After our disastrous encounter with orange picking in Iraak, Victoria (1/2 an hour from Midura) me and my friend Scott escaped the job and took refuge with his sweet, wonderful, and hilariously animated Aunt Jeanie. Luckily, Scott seems to have long-lost relatives from Ireland everywhere! Jeanie didn't know us from a hole in the wall, but rang us one day and saved us from that wretched farm. She showed up in her car almost immediately and brought us back into "civilization", where we have been residing since.

Dance party in the kitchen, listening to
 DJ Tiesto off my cell phone!

That was the end of camping on the semi-desert floor on nights dropping to -2 degrees Celcius, the red earth beneath us rock-hard, and pushing condensation through our sleeping bags. It was the end of bathing outside in the cold, under a broken shower-head behind the tractor shed, getting eaten by flies and all the other fun stuff that comes with camping in the Australian desert. Most of all, she saved us from having to break our backs, only to accept shit pay, that consequently we ended up spending on the cost of food and “farm rent” of 50$/week.(Food can be extremely expensive in Australia, so after paying for groceries we were maybe breaking even) I think we lost more money than we made if you include the cost of transportation. It was a complete mis-adventure, but that's what travel is all about!

Making our own fun on the farm with the 
boys living out of their camper-van

The first week I arrived in Australia, I stayed in Sydney (not the best idea for a budget traveler * Note taken*). Within 7 days, 1500$ Canadian felt like it was “missing” from my account. Considering I had only paid for budget accommodation-and the over-priced scraps of what food I was willing to spend my hard-earned money on, I was not impressed. I had hardly eaten! Where was all my money going? This Working Holiday Visa was starting to look rather expensive..