Monday 31st Mar 2008

Australia’s sunniest capital city has been raining since the early hours, and I have no reason to get out of bed. Normality strikes!
Thoughts of hiring a bike again wash over.

It is a good day to go surfing in Tokyo. Everyone else thinks so too.
It is full – I can’t get connection.

Juggling balls might help fill the day.

The cloud spits and the air nips.
I take refuge in Beatty Park sauna for two hours. I need my daily ‘hot’ quota!

Is it worth joining the job agencies or should I wait for news from the Barrack Street bar?

Sunday 30th Mar 2008

Lancashire lad is evicted from the hostel. Must have upset his roomies last night.

Lazy Sunday afternoon…
Go for a walk around Northbridge with a very loose mission of finding Beatty Park leisure centre. An hour later, I bump into it as I near the brink of losing interest.

The huge 50m outdoor pool wears me out quickly.
I can still feel the three hours of last night’s crazy bouncing.

I phone David, the head chef – no work for me tomorrow

Saturday 29th Mar 2008

Morning bread fails. Bi-carb is too bitter.

Nothing to do…
I fancy a swim. Cottesloe ‘pool’ again.

Tonight we move 2 hours closer to England.
Oz goes back 1 hour as the UK goes forward 1 hour. Now just 7 hours the diff.

Out with some Lancashire boys and three Dutch girls they already know from their travels. No strangers to a spot of bother these guys. Still, it could be fun.
They move on while I finish a new drink. Back to hostel but I’m not ready to call it a night yet.
Chat with Shannon before heading back out for round two. ‘Rise’ nightclub – hardcore techno! Finally a venue where I can throw my crazy shapes on the dance floor and not be out of place.
Alone in a room full of people.

Friday 28th Mar 2008

It is MANIC in the kitchen today! Kind of glad I am on ‘odds and sods’ duty and not in the thick of it.
$110 smacka-roonies! It wont go far, but I didn’t have to do much to earn it.

Walking through town with a crate of ‘tinnies’, you’d think I was carrying water from the Holy Grail!
I didn’t manage to slip past a single abbo without getting a “hey mate…”
Wallet empty, wages all gone. Easy come…

Out for a few with some old faces.

Thursday 27th Mar 2008

“Bar On Barracks”
It’s a bar, on Barrack Street.

10:00-14:30. Pretty short days but I am only there to help with the lunchtime service.
Got shouted at lots but that is all part of the charm of the job. No worries!
I like it…No, I love it.

I check-in to ‘home’ again before spending the rest of the day back in Tokyo.

Wednesday 26th Mar 2008

Bed bugs!
I think I have got away with it though. No bites. They prefer Irish blood, clearly.

My chefs whites have been screwed up at the bottom of a bag for two months. I should probably treat them to a bit of an iron. Can’t find one in Madcats. I feel silly for even looking.
Pop down the road to The Crown. It’s like a hotel! I never appreciated it before. Clean, tidy and spacious. Ah that familiar air freshener.
That’s not REAL backpacking!

11:00-13:00
It wasn’t busy but I could see where chaos could brew in such a small kitchen. Burgers and steak sandwiches – easy enough. Friday lunchtime will be the real test…

10:00 start tomorrow. David, the head chef from Singapore, offers me $17 an hour cash. Reasonable rate but only ~20 hours a week. It will pay for living costs at least.

Free beer for my troubles today. I am offered food but looking at the stuff for two hours has quashed my appetite.

I wander into the State Library of Western Australia and get transported to some university library in Tokyo where every chair, desk and computer terminal is filled with Japanese students asleep on their notepads and laptops.
Free wireless Internet and comfortable chairs. Why didn’t I think of this months ago?!

My bed is always sprinkled with sand? I swear the ceiling is eroding all over it.
I will miss this place

Tuesday 25th Mar 2008

I don’t go back in after lunch. Today the tennis ball wont go away.
I’m not quite ready for surfing one legged!
I sleep on the beach instead.

A guy comes whistling over pointing out a dark fin in the water. Everyone is ordered out immediately and they scramble onto the beach to get away from the dolphin.
Better to be safe than legless.

14:30 – make our way back to Perth. I think about where the best spot would be in kings Park.

Emperor’s Crown – full
Globe – full
Grand Central – full
YHA – full

Lugging both packs through the hot streets isn’t fun so I’m happy when “Madcats” steals away my Kings Park adventure with a $25 five bed dorm. Relief to have a bed but also slight disappointment. I wont sleep rough if I don’t have to but almost crave the opportunity.

This is a filthy, cramped, disgusting hole. The park WOULD be cleaner!
It is that old style of building where every room is inexplicably on a different level. A maze of corridors and half-pint stairways.
The absence of any secure storage puts me at ease – no burden of locks, no walls of distrust. My first real backpackers. I kind of like it.
I am in the Irish room; me and four Irish. A lot of Irish hate the English, right? They all sit silently in the room reading, sleeping and smoking weed so it is difficult to tell

Arranged a short trial in the bar where Shannon works. They need someone for steak sandwiches. 11am start tomorrow.

Got my first bed bug and I’m not even in bed yet! I just hope it is my own blood now smeared on my trousers.
Ah it is fine; I have slept with worse in the outback.

Monday 24th Mar 2008

Pain, ache, throb and hurt is the theme for the day.
It is cool outside too. The water feels warm against the cold numbness of my feet.
There is a tennis ball of hurt on the end of my foot and the seaweed insists on stabbing at it. I decide today is not going to happen and prepare to go back to ‘Surfers Paradise.’

Rob, the instructor, takes a group of us ‘out the back’. It’s a struggle to get there but behind the break point of the waves the water bounces calmly.
Sitting on the board is harder than it looks!
This is surfers lookout. Watching and waiting, watching and waiting, for the next big swell that could allow them to go ‘finger painting in the green room’.
Surfing is a spiritual thing; you have to touch the wave.

We learn a few basics: turning the board while sitting (draw circles with the feet), getting back on after trying to turn (climb from the tail and pull it down under you), leaning pivot turn (lean back, pull up, twist and fall off)…more climbing practice.
We catch a wave back ‘inside’ and I’ve lost the tennis ball; now just the occasional golf ball.
I’m glad I didn’t leave.

A later attempt at going out the back again is a turtle-rolling, paddling, gasping, pounding nightmare. I call it a day and wash up on the beach battered and bruised.

Why didn’t I pre-book the hostel before I left Perth?
I phone up; I am probably homeless for the next two days.

Sunday 23rd Mar 2008

If this bed was in any way comfortable I would never be able to get out of it. I guess I should be thankful for its discomfort.
Our creaking bodies join the morning chorus of the creaking bunk beds. It has only been two days!

Scored my first beach landing. Only 5 metres out but it still feels good.
My toe isn’t holding me back too much. It’s not as painful as some parts.
I fashion the ‘Nipple Protector 5000′ (patent pending) out of some vaseline and a few strips of masking tape. I never anticipated this much pain!

Talking with a new recruit, Nicola from Germany.
We spot a ‘moon rise’ .

Saturday 22nd Mar 2008

I’m glad these learner boards are soft; I’ve face-butted the edge of mine several times.

Amidst all the other aches, pains, bruises and blisters I almost don’t notice my toenail hanging off.

I feel like I’m ‘it’! Every group has one. A ‘one of those’ who is always at the centre of whatever is going wrong. It seems my turn has come to carry the torch.
Late for the bus, left my bag on the bus, picked up the first ‘battle scar’, and there’s always one who puts the wet suit on backwards…!
Somehow I just don’t care.

Nice enough people in the group but I’m just not clicking with any.
I almost resent some of them for being English! 6 of us in a group of 20.
The group changes daily with some joining and some leaving. Everyone is booked for a different number of days.