Strictly speaking not all 150 days were spent on the road. Some of those days were spent on boats, in aeroplanes, on beaches, on farms, riding bikes, travelling by foot, working in fields, swimming in oceans or swimming pools and a whole load of other places and ways to travel in between. But it makes for a catchy title and it is true that we have now been away from home for over 150 days.
This is the longest either myself or Joey has been away for and yet, though we have moments of missing home, friends and family, surprisingly neither of us feels ready for the trip to end yet. We’ve found that where the working holiday visa works really well for us is being able to stop and work when we are craving stability and move on when we are getting itchy feet again. In that respect the WHV has been what we expected and hoped for but in pretty much every other way it has not gone how I imagined it would at all. As someone who often has high expectations, a fantasy version of how I imagine everything will fall into place perfectly, it has been a steep learning curve to be more flexible and accept that I can only make decisions based on my current situation. In fact I feel like I’m still learning that there is no place for regrets on this trip, that I need to live in the present and accept that I can only make decisions for the next steps based on my current situation. That being said, I thought for 150 days I would run you through my expectations for this trip and what it has been like in reality.
Expectation: Australia is expensive.
Reality: Australia is expensive.
There are plenty of ways to keep costs down in Australia from free campsites, house sitting, work aways, cooking cheap meals for yourself and other tips and tricks but it is unavoidable that Australia is an expensive place to travel. There were definitely points of this trip where we could have travelled smarter or cheaper but I also know we have spent money on some amazing experiences that I wouldn’t change for the world, as well as finding plenty of free ones too. However, owning a vehicle, especially a camper van, has been the main expense. I didn’t expect so many repairs, I wasn’t adequately prepared for the costs of rego and insurance and general set up and I definitely underestimated not so much the price of fuel but just how often we would have to fill up because of the distances travelled. If you think you’ve saved enough for Australia, save more.
Expectation: We’ll find farm work easily and find something cool and unique.
Reality: Lots of terrible Gumtree ads, more experience needed than we thought and cool, unique places not being what they seemed at first.
There are plenty of ways to find farm work in Australia but finding something that doesn’t sound dodgey, isn’t impossible to get to or doesnt require farm experience was harder than we expected. We thought we had hit the jackpot when we got a position in the Adelaide Hills on a beautiful farm less than an hour from the city but the reality of being the only two workers there meant it still felt isolated. We had wanted to find something different from fruit picking if possible but at least fruit picking with other backpackers gives you a sense of community we felt was missing from our experience. Basically it had all looked picturesque and too good to be true on the surface and definitely didn’t live up to expectations. However I still enjoyed working outside, having time off to explore the local area and learning some new skills.
Expectation: We will spend the majority of our time on the East Coast.
Reality: Halfway through our visa and we haven’t even reached the East Coast yet.
The plan was always to travel through central Australia really quickly and end up working and spending the most time on the East Coast, when we accepted the farm work and backtracked to Adelaide this changed everything. The downside of this is we feel we have met less backpackers on the road than we thought we would as we have been travelling less popular routes. On the plus side we have been travelling less popular routes. We would never have ended up on Kangaroo Island if we hadn’t been looking for a way to fill our time being farm work and au-pairing. I never imagined that the little town of Hahndorf we admired while passing through on our way to the Red Centre would be somewhere we could pop into for lunch on our days off from the farm. At times it feels like we still have so much left to see of this vast country and other times it feels like we have already seen way more than we expected.
Expectation: We’ll meet lots of other backpackers in campervans.
Reality: Not so much.
We’ve met and seen plenty of grey nomads (retiree Australians with fancy campers and trailers) but not so much other backpackers. Maybe this is due to the places we’ve travelled to so far and maybe this is due to staying on paid campsites more often than we thought we would. It could also be the season we are travelling certain areas in. Whatever the reason we are often left thinking where are all the backpackers? Sometimes we like the time to ourselves and sometimes we crave company. Our recent trip to The Grampians did change things though when we got chatting to an Ozzy bloke traveling with his girlfriend who turned out to be from the UK, who in turn also got chatting to another van life couple from the UK. We spent a couple of nights swapping stories round the campfire and one very adventurous hike together and it did wonders for lifting our spirits.
Expectation: Freedom and Flexibility.
Reality: Constant decision making but also more opportunities.
I thought I had always wanted to do a trip that was completely open-ended with no plan in sight, however this trip has made me realise that I definitely prefer to have a plan. I might not always stick to it but I feel a lot happier and more secure if I know what our next steps are. One of the things I have found hardest about this trip is the constant decision making. Trying to judge whether we are doing the right thing or not is not easy. I mean I can’t even decide what to order at a restaurant let alone where, when and how we should travel the next part of our trip! Yet not having a plan, or at least not having anything booked ahead of time that we have to be somewhere for, has meant that when an opportunity has cropped up that sounds really good, we can go for it. There is no wondering ‘what if’ because we just move things around, reassess our current vague plan and make a new one. It is what led us to au pairing in Tocumwal, where we are currently at, a rural town three hours north of Melbourne we would never have expected to be but living with a lovely family and learning about the Australian way of life.
There are so many more ways I expected this trip to go but these are the big ones. At 150 days in it is hard to say Australia has exceeded my expectations as I still feel we have so much more to do, but it has certainly been unexpected in some of the best ways possible.
I have some major catching up to do on the trip posts so hang tight and expect a flurry of updates on what we have been up to. I’ll link them here as they come out too so all expectations and realities will begin to make sense.
Jess' Journal of Joy 