So... Where to next?

Here's my dilemma. When I came out to Australia my family were pretty adamant that I would need to buy a return ticket, just in-case of emergency. So I did. Here comes the dilemma... You can only use your return ticket in your first year of travel. CRAP. I came here in November last year, and this means I only have around 8 weeks left in Australia. A truly frightening prospect.

So... what do I do? I have given myself 3 options...

1 - New Zealand.

When I got to Australia I never thought I would want to travel NZ. I knew I'd like to visit, maybe for a week or so, but I never thought of it as a place to spend a prolonged period of time in. That was, until I saw pictures. So many people I have met whilst travelling have showed me the most incredible pictures of New Zealand and oh my god I want to go. I have just stolen some pictures off a friends facebook page to show you what I am talking about. Swoooon.

I should point out these pictures are not taken by a professional which just goes to show how incredible this place looks. Absolutely.... insane. It hurts my head a bit. & the finale -

Ohhhh yeah baby!! Hobbit-land! Amazing! Going to New Zealand obviously has it's perks but it would mean another year or two away from family and friends, going it totally alone and losing out on my plane ticket home as the bloody company will not give me even a partial refund. Swines.

2. Asia.

It may or may not come as a surprise to you that I have an English degree. A Bachelor of the Arts, if you will. Not putting this to use makes me sad, sometimes. In comes the allure of teaching English as a foreign language. New challenges, fantastic scenery and something that will look pretty frickin good on my CV in a few years.

Again, this would mean giving up my plane ticket and spending more time away from home, not to mention the fact my Mother is almost sure that me going to Asia alone is basically asking murderers to turn me into some form of gourmet kebab. I'm thinking Thailand or Vietnam. My friend did it and she got paid well and had the experience of a lifetime but... she was with her boyfriend. Am I brave enough to do this alone? Here, have some pictures...

3. Home/Manchester

Ok, admittedly this does not fill me with as much excitement. The prospect of going home, to find a job to fund my next travels whilst I could just be moving straight onto them seems pretty silly. But oh my god, the lure of spending a Christmas with my family and friends is right up there with travelling to New Zealand! I miss home and my family SO much. The thought of going to lush, stocking up on bath bombs and having hot wine and cake with my Mum and Sisters sounds like heaven to my ears. Also, I have a ticket there already. Am I realistically going to be able to save enough money to get a flight to NZ and spends too before summer comes around? Or do I just go home and spend a few months there and try not to dip into the savings I'll have when I get there? I spent last Christmas away and it killed me. I got drunk on a beach in St Kilda and vowed I would never be away again. So... what do you think I should do? What would you do? This would also mean I can travel the UK a bit, visit my friend in Ireland over Christmas and my friend in Brighton who's visiting from Australia. Help anyone?

Admittedly, not nearly as beautiful but part of me feels like I am putting off real life by travelling and I am hitting 25 in a couple of months so maybe I should just go home and face 'reality'?

I hate being an adult and having to make my own bloody decisions sometimes.

I know, first world problems eh.

Love Sam

x

Queensland! & other things

Ok, after my love affair with Melbourne, in particular the Mornington Peninsula, I thought - this is my favourite place. It can't get any better than this, I am happy. It had culture, Sun, fantastic food and drink, beautiful beaches and the people were just incredible. Then I went to Perth and to be totally honest, I didn't like it nearly as much. I found it to be isolated, overpriced and the people just weren't all that great in my experience. So, I decided to totter off to Queensland, with promises of Sun, Sand and good times. Plus, Australia Zoo made famous by one of my abosloute Idols (hello Steve Irwin) is just down the road. I am visiting Australia Zoo in early October (SO EXCITED SQUEAL)

Just look at him. I am gutted he's gone so I'll never get the chance to see him in action, but seeing where he lived and worked will be amazing.


On this note, I feel I should mention a wildlife Sanctuary type place I visited on Magnetic Island, just a 20 minute ferry away from where we stayed in Townsville. It was incredible! I held a baby saltwater crocodile, lots and lots of reptiles & even a 25 year old snake called Samantha (I felt it was a sign she'd look after me, with us being age and name twins). At one point, I had a reptile on my head and a croc in my hands... shit got cray!! Haha.







Having had a fear of snakes since I was small, the blurry moment above was a real achievement for me, it was celebrated with lots of yummy pear cider :D


During August, my friend Steph and I were lucky enough to housesit in a beautiful house in an awesome city called Townsville (Ironically I thought this meant it was actually a town... it isn't). I LOVED townsville, from the little bars playing the worlds cheesiest music, to bumping into AFL players, the aquarium with the living coral and having my own swimming pool with no rent to pay for 2 weeks was pretttty cool. They were some really happy days and I had a lot of time to just chill out, watch lots of episodes of New Girl and fall in Love with Australia all over again. Here's a delightful picture that sums up my average day there -





As is life, my money quickly dried up and now I am working again to save for my next venture... which is going to be New Zealand! It was never really on the agenda to visit New Zealand for a long amount of time, but having met the amount of people I have and just spied on their photos, it is simply too much of an oppurtunity to pass up, it looks absoloutely incredible. So the original plan of going home for Christmas has been scrapped, in favour for a year off traveling the world again. I never thought I'd have the balls to last a year out here, let alone want to wander off to other countries afterward.




Wow this has been a lengthy post. I also want to mention to anyone who may be reading this by chance, please learn to make the most of and appriciate the life you have. I often look at bloggers/vloggers/youtubers of a similar age and background to me, I compare how much success they have and their lifestyles to myself and I really beat myself up that I'm losing. It's only when you take a step back, stop comparing yourself and appriciate what you have that you realise, it ain't so bad. I am really proud of myself this past year, prouder than I was when I graduated University, when I passed my driving test and when I was brave enough to be someones birthing partner (trust me, with hindsight, that was freaking brave!!). I have come so far - and the liklihood is that you have too, you just don't realise it. It is so easy to sit at a screen and covet someones life - but vlogs/blogs and the like, usually only document the good. & where would we all be without the bad eh? Not appriciating a bloody thing. So I'm going to sign off now, with a picture of a rainbow. When the rain falls, look for your rainbow - even if it's TINY there's one out there :)

Lots of love, Sam

Photographic intro to Australian life

To combat the language heavy previous post, I am going to post a few photos of my travels, with a few words here and there to explain what exactly the picture is about. \

 Standard.

 This was my Christmas dinner... it's not all so bad hey! Tapas with fried halloumi, prawns, salad, oh lord it was good.

 The Melbourne Laneways! Helllllo Tourist

 What melbourne is really famous for, beautiful coffees with cake.

 The Sunset on my favourite day here so far. We went to my friend Jess's beach hut and had a BBQ, it was just beautiful, the picture really does not do it justice. We'd just met and she invited me out of the blue, she will long continue to be a close friend.

 A night out in Melbourne. This is me being entertained by the name of the trendy sidestreet bar we found ourselves in.

 This is in WA, I moved here to meet my friend from home, the beautiful Imogen

 & this is the other reason I moved... to do my reigonal work. I'll potentially do another post on this as this is on my mind a lot because I only picked grapes for a week. It was a week of HELL. We got paid around $4 a bucket... which when you consider most people are on $20+ an hour for unskilled jobs is an absoloute pittance.

 Bahahaha, British sense of humor

The view from a hammock at a BBQ about a week ago. Sometimes you just gotta sit back and reflect :)

Thanks for viewing, hope you are all having a great day!

Peace and love

Sam

xxx