Musings of a wanderer

I thought about the title of this post for a bit after writing out the entire post and whether it is appropriate given that till now, I haven't actually seen a doctor. Decided to go on with it since that had been my intention but just haven't been able to manifest the seeing part. I tested positive for COVID a few days ago. It's no big deal now but I think I am quite possibly one of the minority now. It seems that there have been more people who have caught it than not caught it at this point. I didn't figure I would catch it in Australia given how wide and open it is. Incidentally, I was having this conversation with Renee a few months ago in Perth about how even without all the masks mandates and everything, it is far easier to catch COVID in Singapore than over here and the conclusion we came to was because its more open, even in the big cities. Anyway, on hindsight, now is proabaly as 'good' (I use good liberally here. There really isn't any good time to...

I recently completed my RSA certification (Responsible Service of Alcohol) with EOT . In Australia, it is mandatory for anyone who works in the hospitality industry that serves alcohol (which is essentially almost everywhere) to be RSA certified. While my main object of this adventure is of course to complete and learn more about farming and the work involved in our food, I thought I should complete this certification to give myself more options in case the farming thing doesn't work out. The thing about RSA certification is that while it is generally universal for all states in Australia, to be RSA certified in VIC and NSW would require you to jump through a few more hoops. And since I am currently in VIC, the generic RSA certification will not do and I had to pay slightly more to get certified for VIC. As you can see, if I were to get a RSA certification for WA, it would have been applicable in all states in Australia except for VIC and NSW. Which means that had I gotten my RSA t...

So while I was looking for a more permanent job here in Melbourne, I got a job off Facebook as a scare actor at the Royal Melbourne Show. Apparently, the royal show was a thing pre-COVID, and that it was an annual occurrence held at the Melbourne showgrounds (think Singapore EXPO, except it is outdoors, not indoors). This was an 11 day event from Thursday 22 Sept to Sunday 2 Oct. At this point, I'd like to point out the significance of the start dates. Now, you must be wondering, why start on a Thursday and not a Friday or a Saturday even? I'm not sure whether this was pre-planned or it was planned with this in mind, but 22 Sept happened to be a National Day of mourning for the recent passing of the late Queen E. And so that was a Federal public holiday here in Australia given that the Queen (and now King C) was the Head of State of Australia. Thank heavens we are a republic. That weekend however, was an ultra long weekend - because Friday was also a public holiday in Victoria;...

Alright. Time to get down to the itinerary and finances involved for the long roadtrip from Perth to Melbourne. Here's the itinerary. Day 1 - Perth to Margaret River (Busselton Jetty, Ngilgi Cave, Canal Rocks) Day 2 - Margaret River to Albany (wine tasting at Redgate, Boranup forest, Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree, Valley of Giants Tree Top Walk) Day 3 - Albany (Albany Windfarms, Sharp Point, The Gap, Cable beach, Blowholes - the little Peninsula off Albany) Day 4 - Albany to Esperance (a not Pink Lake) Day 5 - Camping at Lucky Bay (Cape Le Grand National Park and sights) Day 6 - Lucky Bay to Norseman (last town before the Nullarbor) Day 7 - Norseman to Bordertown (1st half of Nullarbor, 90 Mile Straight, WA/SA border-crossing) Day 8 - Bordertown to Ceduna (Bunda Cliffs, Head of Bight, Whale watching, Port Sinclair Pink lake) Day 9 - Ceduna to Port Augusta (Streaky Bay, Woolshed Caves, Kimba) Day 10 - Port Augusta to Adelaide (Lake Bumbunga) Day 11 - Adelaide to Mount Gambier Day 12 ...

Its been a while since I last posted - a combination of busyness and laziness. I had started on a draft post for our roadtrip finances last week but haven't updated it since. I thought about updating that and posting it but decided against it as quite a lot has happened over the past 12 days and so the executive decision has been made to first post about our time in Melbourne thus far. A month ago in August, I had asked my uncle (who lives in Melbourne) about renting a place here in Melbourne. We wanted to find out whether our budget could afford us a similar accoms to that in Perth. Also, Melbourne being much bigger than Perth, we thought it would be a good idea to check in on where the 'nicer' suburbs were. With that in mind, we went about our housing search. Similar to Perth, our lease duration was not going to be long (6 months - better than Perth though) and so that counted against us. We searched for accoms all over - from FB marketplace (private renters) to domain.co...

We just arrived at Apollo Bay, after entering the state of Victoria earlier this morning. As we come to the end of our journey, I thought I'd write about the one constant over this 2 weeks - Motels and roadhouses. In the past, I used to have the impression that motels are seedy cheap hotels. This is further from the truth. In fact, motels and hotels serve two completely different customer base and therefore fulfil completely different needs. While the concept of motel is something I have somewhat gotten used to having done a number of roadtrips during my holidays, they don't exactly exist in Singapore. Throughout this trip, we have gone through a grand total of 12 different motels/ roadhouses, almost all of which we stayed for a grand total of 1 night. Motels are essentially accoms designed for motorist travellers. These are usually no frills, basic accommodation located outside the town centre, compared to hotels which are almost always located inside or near the centre. There...

We've arrived at Norseman - the last town before the Nullarbor crossing. Before arriving in Australia, I have actually never heard of it. After reading up more about our journey last month, it came to our realisation that this crossing actually requires a bit more preparation than simply turning the ignition key and going. It takes 2-3 days to traverse it and it requires forward planning on rest stops, fuel stops, accommodation stops and of course photo-ops stop. From the last town in Western Australia (Norseman) to the first town in Southern Australia (Ceduna) is a grand total of slightly more than 1200km - almost the equivalent of driving the distance between Singapore and Phuket. The Nullarbor crossing is possibly one of the greatest transcontinental journey and is notorious for its unforgiving landscape. Of course in this day and age, it is a lot easier with paved roads, google maps and 8 roadhouses along the way which means that there is no longer a real need to carry jerry ca...