Three thousand steps before brekkie

This is the story on my new job.

Beginning of May I arrived in Scone, NSW after a great 17hour drive from the Whitsundays. 

I took a live in job as a horse trainer and groom with a family of 3. Here I take care of 7 horses. Six and a half really ;-)

So everyday I wake up at 6:45AM to snooze once and be outside by 7 to feed the horses. Mixing up everyone's specific feed according to their meal-plans (I swear these horses get better food then I do sometimes 😂), splitting up the guys cuz they ain't of the sharing kind and skipping out the paddocks takes me a good three quarters of an hour before I can go back in to feed myself. 

After brekkie, I've got about 4 hours to get all the horses worked. As I've learned this past month it's quite impossible to properly ride 6 horses in less then 4 hours as they all have their own 'special care' programs going on too 😅

Time flies out here. On Thursdays I cook diner and I've usually got my day off on Monday, there doesn't seem to be much in between (on either side!).

I'm not agreeing with the falling (plummeting more like it) temperatures around here, but summer will be back around soon enough and in the meantime; if it stays cooler longer in the mornings that means I don't have to get up at 5 anymore in the weekends to get everyone fed and tacked up to go hunting, woehoe!

Writing and blogging has taken a back seat this past month, I'll probably get back to it again more in the following ones. So much to tell you about Singapore and the tropical north east coast !! 

that'll be all for now,

xoxo Liz

East coastin'

I left Mallacoota in high spirits, plan was to go up north and find a job with horses again. And so I did. after another epic roadtrip. 

This post is going to be mostly photos because there's just so much I want to share and not that much to talk about it. I never drove longer than 2 to 3 hours a day and stopped everywhere I felt like it. Chasing lighthouses and beaches alike. 

So sit back and enjoy the views I would say.

First stop after 'coota was Mimosa rocks national park, recommended to me by my host family. I spent the night on one of the camping spots there and woke up early to see the sun rise for the very last time in 2018. It was quite worth it to wake up at 4:30 in the morning. 

4:39 am, 31 of Dec 2018

4:57 am

5:15 am

5:07 am

big oll' stingray casually swimming by to catch anything
dropped by the fishers on the docks

After starting my last day of the year well, I headed up for a pancake brekkie in Bermagui (random little fishing town where I drove though and got hungry) to arrive in Narooma. 

Australia Rock

Not that I had planned on visiting Narooma but turns out Narooma is home to the infamous 'Australia Rock'.  A nice walk across the inlet I found a beautiful view point, seals sleeping and playing around at the bar crossing and also: Australia rock. 

Fun fact: 

my picture sucks and you can't really see it because it's not the big rock sticking out that is supposed to look like Aus, it's the hole in the middle that looks like the outlining of Aus. story is that it was created by accident by a ship that was tied to the rock with large chains to prevent it from drifting off during a storm.

Dalmeny, another random spot I thought was pretty

I spent New Years eve in a YHA in Batemans Bay. Arrived in the early afternoon checked into the hostel and drove around a bit to find somewhere to chill. Thing was that the weather wasn't very nice. kind of chilly, very windy and rainy every now and then. So I just ended up having an ice cream and walking around random shops for the afternoon. 

In the evening I had a couple of drinks with some guys I met at the hostel. Went back into town for chips and prawns for dinner and back again to the hostel where we had a couple more drinks, danced, laughed and I was pretty much in bed by quarter to 12. 

As I fell asleep I could hear the fireworks signalling the new year. 

Next day I drove up to the Royal national park, just under Sydney. I drove to this national park because it was another place I had already been. Being the first day of the year of course everybody had just about the same idea as me, which was to drive to the beach and have a chill afternoon there. 4 years ago I had passed through and slept in the park only a couple weeks after I was there now, but of course with the school holidays still going it was absolutely packed. After driving around for at least half an hour to find a place to leave my car I found a spot and headed to the beach. The water was icy cold but the sun was hot as ever so I spent the rest of my first day in 2019 lazy on the beach with a good book and some snacks. By night time the park emptied and I was able to sleep in (almost) the exact same spot as I had done (almost) exactly 4 years ago. It was quite cool. 

Bundeena

Jan 2nd I drove again a couple hours north. this time stopping in Norah head, spending the afternoon chilling on the beach as per usual. To go explore the lighthouse the following morning. 

This is when I decided to go wherever the next lighthouse would be.

Jenny Dixon reserve

Norah head lighthouse

What followed was a day of old familiar sights I chased down all day. First up was Hawks nest and its massive sand dunes. Followed by spending the night in Seal Rocks. 

Now 4 years ago I just stopped by here, I didn't even go to the lighthouse (can you imagine ?!!). So now I was very happy to have gotten a second chance at exploring this little bay better. 

These fairy lights are possibly the best thing I bought for Nala

morning ocean and mountain views are most likely my fav

Seal rocks

These are the moment I wish I had the knowledge (and car)
to go 4WD'ing on the beach

Sugarloaf Point lighthouse, Seal Rocks

And so I arrived at my home for now, Bellrowan Valley. A good half an hour west from Port Macquarie I found myself in Aussie bushland surrounded with horses once again.

I stayed at Bellrowan for two weeks, at that point my funds were getting drastically low and I had to find a paid job fast. 

Anyhow, those two weeks were great. Hot, sweaty and cut off from the world but surrounded and working with horses every day. 

I found this wonderful trail riding company through HelpX once again so I worked for my food and accommodation. 

For me there is almost no greater feeling than working with horses. Connecting, teaching and learning (from) them is what I live to do. And that was exactly what I was able to do there, training the greens one to cope with life, getting miles done with the not-so-green ones, assisting on guided tours, living for the horses in short. 

With a beer and icy-pop on the side obvs.

Tinker in front left and Apollo in the back right grumpy
because he wasn't getting all the attention to himself :p

having a little moment with Tinker before our ride

So a good two weeks later I was off again, up the coast in search of a job. I had decided to try my luck in Byron Bay, another one of those places I kind of went to but didn't really see nor experience.

Tacking point lighthouse, Port Macquarie

Me being me, I obviously took it pretty chilled and drove up in a couple of days. Chasing beautiful beaches and lighthouses along the way where and wherever I could.

two hours later... Smoky cape lighthouse, Arakoon

another night spent next to the beach in South West Rocks

Coffs Harbour beachin'

  

Fun fact about Coffs, last time I stopped here I was pouring down rain and had been raining for a couple of days so all the parks were absolutely swamped. So it was (yet again) refreshing to see the place same same but different after all that time.

Getting woken up by rowdy kids on the streets at 2 in the morning sucks, waking up with the sunrise from my comfy bed isn't so much.

When in Coffs.....
you go visit the big banana

And then when in Ballina,
you go see the big prawn

Next up: BRYON BAY, YAAAAAY

Can you tell I'm really stoked to have finally gotten to the point where I can write about life in Byron?! Well, I am.

As I'm writing this in real time, I just left Byron a couple of hours ago. Headed to the next new adventure tomorrow. Meaning I've got a good 12 hours to kind of fill you in with most of my Byron adventures such as chasing waterfalls and daily life working two jobs.

xoxo Liz

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