Rebecca,
My trip to Australia was amazing. It definitely was one of the best experiences of my life. I met so many amazing people and saw some beautiful places. I was stationed in Bathurst which is in the Blue Mountains area. Our projects were throughout different places in the mountains and I stayed at some really cool places. I ended up pushing my return date back and did some traveling on my own, including surf camp for two days which was awesome.
The best part of my trip was hiking through the Blue Mountains with the group. It really is so beautiful there. The most memorable part was the people. I made some really good friends very quickly. The sad part is saying good bye to them after only one or two weeks. But I really lucked out with the people that I worked with. The one thing I would change is the hostel I stayed at the first 2 nights in Sydney. The place was ok, but I heard there are much better hostels, like Wake Up and the YHA hostel.
Feel free to tell people to contact me who are considering going on the trip. I will give them positive feedback. Let me know if you need anything else from me. Thanks.
David S.
So the last two weeks of work were probably my favorite. We drove about 4 hours south to the boarder of New South Wales to a blacksmith's farm, who also takes in wwoofers. They lived in the woods about 20 minutes outside of a town called Stanthorpe. We slept in their back yard in tents and they had a small garage type thing that had a kitchen and table in it for us to do our cooking and cleaning.
The work we were doing was making nature trails for people to walk on. The first week we were to make one track about 200 meters long that was sloped down and it had lots of bolders and things in the way so we had to first clear the track, remove the big boulders, make some visible boundaries so people don't wander into the woods and then cover the track with this nice brown dirt to make it look more profesional.
The second week job was another trail that was a lot longer but much easier to do. We didn't have to lay the track with dirt and there weren't as many boulders or slopes. It was just a long mostly flat track. They expected us to finish the first trail by the end of the first week and get some of the second trail done the second week. We finished the first trail after the second day, and got most of the second trail done by the end of the first week. Each day the women who lived in the house made us snacks for our breaks before lunch and they were delicious.
On Friday, we had pizza night where we made our own mini pizzas and they had a big fire oven to cook the pizzas right in front of us. It was awesome. They invited the nieghbors and their daughter and son in-law and kids who lived down the road and were very cool. So that was fun with all the people and good food.
The next day we drove to the coast to a place called Byron Bay and we stayed in a trailer home for the weekend and went to the beach each day. We all went out to a cool pub on Saturday night and that was also very fun and funny.
Sunday we drove back to the house and had dinner and then went to sleep. The next day we started work again and pretty much finished the second track by the end of the day. So for the rest of the week we eaither just chilled out in their back yard or did odd jobs for them like help cook or chop some wood (seems like the English kids have never seen wood choped in their life so the other American and I took care of the wood chopping). We went swimming some days as well. Also the man who owned the house was a blacksmith and made some pretty amazing stuff that he showed as and he also taught us how to make nails and some other things, I made a pretty awful nail compared to his but it was my frist try. He made me a pretty cool ring but I lost it when i went mountain biking down the long trailOn friday we had another big dinner where the women who owned the place cooked food from each country of orgin where eveyone was from, so we had Korean, British, some Germans and Australians.
So that was a good way to end the week. The next day we packed up to go home and we almost got out of there with nothing happening, but our friend Matt was coming down the ladder for the last time and it colapsed under him and he fell onto the ground. At first we thought it was just a bad bruise and he would be alright in time, but to be safe we took him to the doctor. Right away they said yea you broke your elbow in two places and you need pins placed in there. So that was a huge bummer. So we spent the day in Stanthorpe where aparantely the people cant drive because as we were waiting for Matt to come back from the x-ray office, 20 feet up the road an old woman drove her car right into a building. She must have instead of putting on her brakes to park slammed on the acceleration and rammed right into the building. I guess thankfully she ran into the doctors, and right away a doctor came out and helped her with a neck brace. After everything was cleared and the windows were boarded up they put up a sign on the door, "drive through now open." So atleast they had a good sense of humor about it.
I have now checked into a hostel called City Backpackers and it is cool. They have free internet, nice rooms and a roof top pool. I'll be spending the week here while bumming around Brisbane. I haven't quite figured out when I am going to Sydney. I might be going with a friend. I'm not sure yet, but until then I am still in good ol Brisbane.
PEACE AND LOVE
AARON
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