72 hour holiday in Tassie

Being on a working holiday visa, I've sometimes found it a little hard to get the work/hol balance just right. The guilts of not working enough are constantly battling with the guilts of only having two years to explore every bit of Australia, and I'm always trying to find the middle man!

With that in mind, I had three days off from serving yoghurt last week, and decided to take a little holiday to Tasmania with my housemates.

We took a flight into Hobart, hired a car and tried to cram in as much as we could in just 72 hours! Despite the weather not being on our side, Tasmania's scenery was bloody beautiful. You could drive for hours, to only be met with miles of rolling hills and just a handful of other cars on the road. 

We drove up to Mount Wellington before heading north to see the Bay of Fires. Having seen so many unreal views over the past couple of years, seeing new scenery still makes me feel pretty lucky and something I try not to take for granted. 

Making new pals and seeing my first Tasmanian devil in Bicheno on day two was definitely the holiday highlight for me:

On the third and final day of our trip, we stayed in Hobart. We visited the MONA Gallery and chilled out in the Botanical gardens. 

After cramming so many activities in, we all felt pretty sleepy before setting off for our flight back - especially Billy, whose public napping had these Chinese tourists a wee bit confused: 

Living on a landing: Liz at 24

If I'd been asked when I was 14 what life would be like in ten years time, I'd have maybe said 'secure job, own flat, steady relationship' etc etc etc. Basically a life that a lot of my friends at home have at the moment.

Well, with one month until my 24th birthday, I'm lying here in my One Direction bed sheets, eating a dominos for one and desperately googling how to get rid of a mouse who has wrongly assumed 'mi casa es su casa'.

The only emails I get these days are either from said fast food outlet, or from LinkedIn asking if i'd like to 'endorse' uni acquaintances I can barely remember on their job skills. Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass. 

I'm neither in steady employment, or a steady relationship and I currently live on a landing. As in a hallway. Yes my bedroom does not have a door or a wall (see below). Day 1 and my housemates had already seen everything. The bathroom door broke on day 2, and this meant my morning wake up calls by day 3 onwards would now be pretty grim.

Even if I wanted friends or family to stay, this is all I could offer them:

Moaning aside, I love being back in Melbourne and really embracing city living this time. I've been going out for great food, to amazing bars and trying to tick off everything on my Melbourne bucket list. With city life before, i was constantly worried about saving money for future travels and limiting my spending. This time, I'm spending much of what I earn on finding the best poached eggs, the best coffee and the best gin and tonic.

Luckily I landed a great paid job in a frozen yoghurt shop in the first few days of arriving back, which has kindly funded my Melbourne fun but been catastrophic on my waist line.

Having such a delightful time back in Melbourne has given me the time to reflect on what Liz at 14 thought Liz at 24 was going to be.  Although I don't have what a typical mid-20 year old has, nor an idea of when I'll get it, I'm feeling less worried about it all. I'm now finding myself accepting that this is all OK.

Although my parents are great and not in the least bit pressurising, those lingering questions always float about: 'When are you going to come home and find a proper job?', 'What are you going to do next year?' I've already been away for almost two years, surely that's enough of this whole 'seeing the world' thing?

I can honestly say I have no clue about any time frames, and with my impending 4 week trip back to the UK, I'm prepping for the inevitable life questions from both my friends and my parents friends. I know they're not being rude, they are just natural questions. But pleeeease, I just really don't know.

I may not have much of life plan or following the acceptable transition from teen to adult, but I'm also not sponging off anyone, nor am I struggling for money. I'm just happy as I am continuing on with my work/travel/work/travel pattern. 

Making ten year predictions is a little silly I feel, but as cringey as it sounds, I'm honestly hoping that I'll just be still be happy and content with whatever I'm doing. I hope I'm surrounded by people that I love and still have the desperate desire to visit different places and meet new people. 

Although, not to be overly optimistic, I'm kinda hoping at the age of 34 I'll have my own room. Fingers crossed eh. 

Nippy's Indonesian Tour

"You're not a proper Australian unless you've been to Bali"

My mate Heather once told me this and she was probably right. The Aussies love Bali, and so did i. 

This holiday back to Asia came a little unexpectedly at the end of my orange packing days. Things happened, my life plan changed for the 2,452nd time, and I decided to sack off my $90 flight to the Philippines and head to the island of Bali with my 7 orange packing girls instead. On reflection, the Filipino typhoon season at that time also made it a wiser choice! 

It's fair to say I was a little sceptical. For one, I'd heard Bali was a little like Ayia Napa. And although I had a great time there back in 2010 when I was 18, I didn't want a repeat of those teenage years. Travelling with 7 other girls (especially with such a mixed bag of personalities) when I'm used to travelling solo made me think it could be a little difficult too.

But over those 17 days, I was proved so so wrong because I had a bloody great time!

Our first stop was Sanur, Bali and to be fair our night out there was exactly like Ayia Napa. However, after 3 and a half months of the Waikerie social club juke box this was exactly what we needed.

The place we stayed was so glam, and this soon became a pro to travelling as a group. Splitting the costs and living like queens was something I could definitely get used to. We all had these first couple of days to chill out after our 13 hour factory shifts, which was so needed.

All my money was spent on massages and cocktails. This woman was well worth the money! Thanks hun.

Ubud was our next stop, and was probably my favourite place out of everywhere. The whole place was so vibrant! The rice terraces were beautiful, the markets were packed and the town had so much character.

It was full of "yogis" on retreats and full of vegan cafes, which served clean food and no booze.

We soon sorted that issue out:

Just doing our thing in Ubud looking like crystal meth addicts.

I also fell in love in Ubud. I don't want to jump to anything too soon, but I think he could be the one. Meet Jonny the orangutan:

I'm going to be honest, before I arrived in Bali I really just didn't know what it was. Was it a city? Nope. A state? Nah. Was it a country? I finally discovered Bali was actually an island, and it was time to leave this island and head to the next. 

It was a traumatic boat ride, after still feeling the effects of the home-brewed shots two days before. But it's safe to say we had arrived in Paradise! Gili Air was a very quiet island, mainly filled with people doing their dive courses. 

Some of us spent a lot of time at the H2O Yoga and Meditation Centre. I hadn't really done much yoga since Vietnam, so it was a delight to find somewhere so cheap and great to do it for the week.

Nicole, Sam and I also decided to stay on Gili Air whilst the rest of the girls climbed Mount Rinjani in Lombok. The plan was to spend these three days detoxing and doing yoga. Nicole, who shares my passion for shots made it evident this was not going to happen. Which it didn't. 

Anywayyyy we then met the rest of our pack on the next island, Gili Trawangan, where we found them absolutely broken. We were so proud of them for completing it, but by looking at Jess' post-Rinjani cripple/jesus look going on, I'm kinda glad I didn't. Love ya Jess!

This was our final Indonesian stop, and it's fair to say we were all fucked. If one of the group wasn't crippled from the volcano trek, then they'd been caught out by the Bali Belly. No guesses to what this coeliac gal had. 

We were determined to have a nice few days as it was quickly coming to an end. The days were spent by the pool and having delicious dinners in the evening.

However, the final night Kristina and I were the only ones that could power through for one last Asian night out.

Although we actually lost each other within the first 10 minutes of the night, we then reunited back at the house at 5am when I found Kristina making some kind of dying cat sounds downstairs in the reception. I asked her where she had been, to which she didn't really know. 

A couple of weeks later, a friend I had made in the Gilis told me that he'd actually bumped into her that night. He was able to fill in a few blanks:

(I think he meant massaging, but who knows)

The final night came around way too quick! With 4 English, 1 Aussie, 1 Welsh, 1 Irish and a Norwegian it was inevitable that we'd have to go our separate ways.

I think I can say this on behalf of all of us, we were a complete mixed bag of girls. But I wouldn't have wanted to spend those 17 days with anyone else! I miss you all so much but am happy in knowing that we will all reunite one day.

Class of 2015 - WE MADE IT

For the past few months I thought this day would never come,

But now it has arrived I'm feeling a tiny bit glum.

This weird little town has become a home to me,

But it's now time to leave for da big city.

The friends here I've made I will miss you a lot, 

But to pack one more orange I could lose the plot.

We've done it, we've made it and we're all so happy!

Class of 2015 at Nippys factory.

A special thank you goes to these delightful BWS employees. Your services gave us the strength to make the 88th day, and although we became borderline alcoholics, we are forever grateful.