Lizzies aussie adventures, remasterd

And so it started once again,

I was back on Australian ground. 
I had reached my goal of returning as soon as I had my degree.

Melbourne, Oct 2018

After living toward this day for a good 3 years I was equally excited as scared.

 What if everything had changed? what if I didn't recognise the city I once grown to love so much? 
what if I had glorified everything in my head so much I would be disappointed by reality?

But it hadn't, the city was still as wonderfully full as when I left it 1222 days previously. For which I was grateful. 

QVM views

I'll forever love Melbourne, the city just gets me. It's always been there for me, through the good the bad and the ugly. 

Needless to say I was so glad to be back, and for a couple of days everything was bliss. I was able to show someone from home the city I'd been talking about for so long. 

So together we explored this wonderfull city. Going back to familiar places for me like the awesome Queen Victoria Market, which is an absolute MUST if you're in Melbourne. Even for a day. 

This huge partly indoor but completely covered market truely has everything you could need or want. Endless rows of fresh fruit and veggies, a labyrinth of meat and fish as well as a hall filled with cheese, breads and all kind of other prepared goodies. And on the other side you can shop your hart out finding things from real leather belts, shoes or jackets to a pet bird and all it's needs. 

Books for Cooks

Around the outside you'll find a bookshop called, 'Books for Cooks'. So naturally, as I was traveling with a chef, we HAD TO go check that out. About a gazillion books  neatly stacked in shelves just about everywhere you looked and all about, you guessed it, food. 

It was quite the sight to see.

Basically we spend out time eating a lot of food and drinking coffee everywhere, walking for hours all over the place and chilling on the beach in St Kilda. 

Next up for me was to get back to my beloved horse-life. Which I did where I had done it before, in northern Victoria.

Victorian bushland, Oct - Dec 18

And so I stepped on that 3 hour bus that would take me to Kyabram, where it all started 4 years ago. 

But I was back in the horse world, the reason I had worked so hard for those past 3 years at uni. 

I was so happy to see this rascal  (<---) again! The cutie on the left here is Wilson, The last horse I worked on in Aus 4 years ago when Steve plucked him of a paddock and we worked on him to be able to get the vet in safely to castrate this beauty.

Needless to say I was extremely happy to learn he was still there and I was able to help with breaking him in further! I learnt so much from this kid in the 5 weeks I had the honour to work with him. He's a lot of work but he's so willing to work if you do it right.  

Oh how I missed these country sunsets

hay season

roundyard views

 

Equine dentist @ work

I will be forever great full for all the things this family has done for me, when I first met them 4 years ago and then when I went back now all over again. 

Spending my days working with the horses and the evenings eating, drinking, talking and laughing,  Playing games, meeting new people. 

And sure, not everything was as I had thought it would be in my head but then again, it never is. So life was pretty damn good there at that time.

After a month of chilling with the horses and chilling in general I got a job as a vet nurse (again thanks to Steve and Charlotte obvs)/ My very first job in Aus and as a vet nurse and all !!

 

So I went from left to right 4 days a week. 

It was such a great experience to be able to work in a vet clinic. I learned so much from the head vet and the other vet nurses in such a short period of time its insane. 

newborns at the clinic after my very first cesarean
on my first day of work

Chilli

Annelies

So for a few weeks I was living the life, working with animals 24/7 on duty soaking up so much information about how everything works in a vet clinic here and after hours or on days off working with the horses at Steve and Charlottes'. 

long live those days we had 25odd kitties in for spading

Kyabram is a great little country town. Right in-between the bigger cities of Shepparton and Echuca it's rural but still quite easily accessible (for aussie standards of course). The town also has a great fauna park which is always worth wandering around through. It has a walk-through aviary and kangaroo's and emu's jumping and walking around freely, needless to say it's a great day trip for all round.

taking out the girls for some exercise

land of irrigation

So northern Victoria is essentially irrigation and dairy land. Because it rains so little farmer have to rely on irrigation to get stuff growing there. Even though I had lived in this region for over 4 months in the past I hadn't actually seen the process in action. Except for the first fase where you order the water and open your little gate to let the water enter the channels across your property. 

The goal is to basically flood a certain amount of land so that crops can grow. To control the flooding you work with check banks along your fields so that you can regulate the flood as such. It really is multiple days worth of hard work job. the day before the water arrives you have to make sure the channels are closed off in the right places and that there are "gaps" allowing water to flow in between each check bank. When the water starts flowing into your own channels (usually around 5 am) you have to make sure it is indeed flowing and that the channels are clear for them to fill up efficiently. And then you have to check up on the process every few hours to close up the first check banks as they will have gotten flooded first as to give the last check bank a chance to get flooded completely as well.  

This was such a weird concept, to literally flood your own paddocks to be able to grow crops out of it. But in the hours and days following the transformation of those two paddocks we irrigated was amazing.  They went from so dry and dusty to lush, healthy growing crops in such short time. 

Safe to say that that was a real Aussie-bushlife experience for me. 

And with the memory of yet another beautiful sunset I'll talk to you soon about my dearest Nala and our adventures on the road !

xoxo Liz

summer summer summer

Quick last recap before the start of my Aussie adventures part2

My European summer started out pretty good. Everything was going as good as I could've hoped for. Within a week I had a place to live in my beloved Ghent, within another week I got a job with great colleagues and I had reunited with all my loved ones. 

I had just over a month to finish and perfect my dissertation, which I did. And I could not have been prouder of the result. After all the stress of finishing my dissertation I escaped life for a short city trip to the beautiful city of Prague.

Phara, July 2018

One day I might write a post good enough for this beautiful city. because it really is a gem. But for now I hope to spark something within you to go and experience it for yourself.

You can't miss the beauty of this wonderfull city. There are so many places to see and things to eat. Easy to walk around and get lost for days in the small ancient streets, up to the castle or to the other side of town to the memorial hill. Something new to see, experience and eat around every corner. 

Vítkov memorial hill view

Castle hill vineyard

We only spend a couple of days here at the end of June, but we absolutely loved it and I would love to go back and explore the city even more. 
Sleeping in the many parks along the river, walking far and wide for the best views of the city and eating in small alley ways was great to start off our European summer!

famous 'dancing house'

Vítkov memorial 

picturesque old town

View over old town from the astronomical clock
with the national memorial on Vítkov in the back

Ghent, summer of 2018

Two weeks after Praha we booked our flights to Melbourne, Australia. Finally. I was going back.

But first, I still had to finish my degree. obviously. 

So my last European summer I spent living quite a good life, finally in the city centre with a good job, my friends and loved ones close, exploring ever more corners of the beautiful city of Ghent. 

Nature reserve, 'Bourgoyen-Ossemeersen' just a
10min bike ride out of the city

Castle of the counts on a beautiful summers day

day break at work on the Korenmarkt

Another couple weeks of hell survived and I finally, FINALLY got message that my three years of hard hard work had paid off and that I would officially be graduated about a week before my departure for Australia.

Edinburgh, September 2018

Off we went to Edinburgh, my brother, two sisters and myself. Off to our very first all sibling adventure!

Edinburgh is such a beautiful city, again a great European getaway. We were only there for a couple of days again but managed to get the most out of our time nonetheless (considering my oldest sister was highly pregnant at the time lol)

Ancient buildings woven in between so many parks, I love discovering and exploring these kind of places around the world. Plus it reminds me you don't always have to go far and wide to find great travel destinations !

Pretty chilly as summer draws to an end quite a bit sooner as in the south of Europe we still had great weather, always in for treats, coffees or lunch at the right times to avoid the showers.
Also very exciting was that I met up with a friend from Costa Rica here aswel! Which was super fun to see and catch up with her again. So great full for the people I'm meeting and reuniting with around the world. 

Arthurs seat is just a walk out of the city, a decent walk up is rewarded
with absolutely magnificent views all round.

I spend my last week in Belgium moving my stuff from my place in Ghent to my moms house across the country and then organising all my stuff at home. Sorting out what I wanted to take with me, what I wanted to keep and what I wouldn't need anymore at all.
Spending time with friends and family, trying to have seen everyone before my one way departure to the other side of the world.

Excitement building, I couldn't have been more ready to go back.

Today I'm almost 4 months into my adventure and so much has happened. can't wait to finally start filling you in on all the weird and wonderful moments I've had here.

xoxo Liz