The past 24 hours have been a roller coaster, to say the least. We've done two tours the past couple days, one a day trip down the Great Ocean Road, the other a a day trip to Phillip Island, site of a penguin march. The Great Ocean Road trip was pretty good. The weather could have been better, but the Australian coastline is amazing. I'm really looking forward to exploring the rest of the coast of this country after seeing this chunk. The high ocean bluffs present amazing views of the turbulent seas below, some of the beaches offering some of the best surfing in the country.
The next day (yesterday) is where things get interesting. The weather was amazing and the group was friendly. We started the tour off at a Wallabee sanctuary where we got to feed some, and then to a sheep farm to learn about sheep shearing. After that we stopped off at a Koala sanctuary to see some of the furry critters. They lazily lounge in the tree tops, making themselves easy photographic subjects for the gawky tourists below. They turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought! I figured they might weigh around twenty pounds, but they grow up to a lofty one hundred pounds! I guess it's easy to put on weight when you sleep twenty hours a day.
The next sights were the pinnacle of the tour. We stopped off at Woolamai Beach, a huge beach that seemed to stretch for miles. Arriving there at 5pm made for perfect late afternoon photographs. After that we went to the Nobbies, a peninsula where thousands of gulls nest on it's hills. The views of the setting sun along the coastline were some of the best I've seen in my entire trip. Unfortunately it was at this point my camera battery decided to die. Not to worry, though, I will be back there at some point. After the sun set we headed to a nearby beach where the penguins emerge from the ocean to return to their nest at night. This was actually a big tourist trap, with bleachers built into the shoreline, chalk full of Chinese tourists who constantly stand up in front of you, blocking your view. It was still cool to see the little penguins cautiously emerge from the waves and wait by the rocks, making a mad dash up the sand when they think it's safe.
When we returned to the hotel is when my luck turned to shit. After one year of traveling in some of the poorest countries in the world, thinking for sure either my netbook or my camera would be stolen in PNG, instead my netbook gets stolen in Australia, a country where I should feel more at ease from these worries. During the time we were at the tour, somebody had broken in through the window of our room and swiped my computer. And nearly all my pictures from Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. I don't even care about the computer, but losing the thousands of a amazing photos from the most photographically magical places and festivals a person can see is heartbreaking. I just wish that person knew really how much they've stolen from me. And I wish I had caught and beat the living shit out of them, too. Fortunately they didn't get my external hard drive, so with that and one last SD card with PNG pics, I still have a few days worth, but only a small fraction of what I had. It's funny, as I was preparing an SD card full of pictures from the Mt Hagen Festival in PNG to shoot for the tour, I hesitated before deleting them. Lesson learned: trust the gut. After that, I needed a few beers. Conveniently, that day was the last day of my month challenge of not drinking. After midnight, I got drunk. Very drunk.
The next day seemed to lift my spirits, if only for a brief moment. I received a call from TasRail, with the news I got the train driver job I had been hoping for. My worries were mostly lifted, I had a great paying job that guaranteed my goals would be accomplished. I headed to a local computer store to get a new case for my hard drive and look at net books. And that's when I got the call from TasRail saying there would be a problem sponsoring me for a work visa. Apparently the only way it can be done is for the company to nominate me, which will only be accepted if there is a listed shortage of Australian workers for that field. And for train drivers, there apparently isn't one, even though TasRail could only find three qualified drivers (including me) to fill seven positions. Australia is the worst bureaucratically bullshit country I've ever seen. So now my future at TasRail is in the hands of a immigration worker that said I have a ten percent chance of being approved. Not favorable odds. Understandably, TasRail wont hire me for six months, only to spend two training me. I have been brought up and torn down hard twice in twenty four hours, of which have been some of the worst of my life. I hope karma will bring some good my way soon, because I know I have some saved up, and right now I need it more than ever.
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