Hello good people of the world it has been awhile. I have been in Australia for almost two months now and I have been grinding for the past month. When I got over here I needed a job asap. I found a job just outside of Sydney for a company that seemed promising and I bought a campervan to live in while working. Well the company was shit in the end and bit me in the ass, and I worked one day for that company and quit. The reason? Well they lied about day shifts on the interview and put me on a night shift. The night shift was from 5pm at night to 7am in the morning with no dinner break. Straight 14 hours of work and it was all bullshit. No one knew what to do. They tried to get me to drive an 18 wheeler that was manual and I was like I can’t do that shit I have never driven an 18 wheeler and just started to learn stick. Everyone was just standing around and a 6 hour day turned into a 14 hour day. So when that happened and I quit, I freaked out. I was down money and had this damn campervan. Luckily enough I landed a job with this other construction company out in Parramatta, a 30 minute drive from Sydney.

 

The company was small and focused on structural construction of condos. When I heard about this I was like perfect. I am an engineer that wants to learn about the construction side of things and be hands on with the process. They said I would be helping the foreman in anything he needs, and the job site that I will be on has just started last month. I said to myself finally a job that I can do for a couple months and learn what I need to learn. Well so I thought. I worked for this company for a little over three weeks, six days a week. I did hardcore labor, and I mean hardcore. I was lifting 200 lbs of steel every day for hours on end, and digging massive trenches to expose the capping beam. Digging these trenches were extra hard because the soil in Australia is all clay. Every day for three weeks my arms and legs would bleed from rubbing rebar and my back would be sore from moving massive amounts of dirt. I cleaned everyone’s trash on site and was basically the bitch. I learned nothing about building and that was a problem. All I saw was how things were being built like as I saw when I was an engineer. The only difference is I was doing bitch work while watching and being an engineer you just watch. I had to leave this joint but was forced to stay because of money issues so hints the three weeks of work. I have made no friends for these past few weeks because I have been working constantly and I have no time since I can only shower at the gym because I live in a camper van. Good news though is that I have saved a couple grand and plan on traveling up the east coast of Australia from Sydney to the Gold Coast. Sydney is just not the place for me. Too much like New York and not laid back at all. No hospitality and the beaches are just alright. I want the true Australian experience and I think Gold Coast is that place.

 

My campervan is a little bitch. She was running pretty the first week I bought her and started growling at me after. Me learning stick shift didn’t help and her having 340000km on her didn’t help either. The van is a 1998 toyota townace. I picked it up from a surfer bro in Sydney leaving for Germany. I told him my situation and asked to please not fuck me on this deal and tell me she drives good and she won’t break down. He said she drives good and you should have no worries. Well for a week she did and then I had to change the oil and fix the clutch. That set me back about 800 dollars and now the battery light is on the day before I head on my adventure up north. The engine also overheats a lot and the coolant runs out quick. The mechanic tells me it’s just because it’s old. What the fuck kind of mechanic answer is that. Anyways hopefully she makes it up there tomorrow I might buy a new battery in the next town.

 

So now I am currently at a hostel. I have finally found power to charge my Mac and type this shit out. You’d be surprised what you don’t have when you live in a campervan. The biggest thing is a toilet. Every morning I wake up at 6am at some soccer field park and the restroom facilities are locked till 8am. So I have to hold in my shit and piss till work at 7am. You have no idea how hard that can be some days and some nights. The second thing is electricity. For some reason there are no outlets anywhere in parks in Sydney. I don’t know why. When I get home from work there is literally no place to charge my shit other than my car. Well you might say, why don’t you just go to the library or go to some fast food place to charge your shit for an hour or so. I’ll tell you why. It is because I work 8-10 hours a day doing hardcore lifting. Then I have to drive 10 km to my gym to shower and workout, if I have enough strength. Then I have to go to the grocery store every two days to restock up on ice and food and then cook the food and then finally its 9pm at night I have to be asleep by 10pm to get 8 hours rest for work. Time is the bitch in this case and I cannot go a day without showering because I’m filthy after work. To solve this electricity problem I have bought a marine battery and a solar power set up system costing me 350 dollars. Unfortunately solar sucks ass and it takes 72 hours to charge the battery I have so on 4 hours of direct sunlight I get 30 percent battery charge out of my phone from this battery. Sydney is clouded as fuck too and parking under direct sunlight is near impossible with all the trees. 350 dollars I think is wasted with that. The last thing with a campervan is controlled temperatures. It gets down to 50 degrees at night now and I am freezing my butt off. I have to get some extra blankets or something else to control the tempature.

 

Nature I have not seen that much and hopefully I will see some more on my journey up to the Gold Coast. I have been to the beaches here in Sydney and they are not as good as Florida beaches. Everything I have taken advantage of in Florida I have started to realize coming here to Australia. Everything that you hear about a country I am starting to understand is over exaggerated. I will tell you one thing though. The views at the national parks I have been to are stunning.

 

The Big Drive:

 

I have made my way up to Coff’s Harbor from Sydney. My engine sounded fucked the next day after I left the hostel plus I had a massive hangover on top of that for the first stretch. Can you blame me for the hangover though? I made first contact with people my age and like me traveling, and they were all drinking! Plus, I was trying to find a candidate that would travel with me on this voyage but no luck with that. Anyways, the first day was rough. My google maps was not working properly and took me on a scary route into the heart of Sydney. I was driving stick on a messed up, high revving engine in the middle of skyscrapers and taxis on a hangover. I was freaking out! Plus, I had to look down at my phone every five seconds to see the blue lined route of roads I had to turn on because google maps couldn’t find me for some reason in the world. Luckily after 30 minutes I escaped the city and was onto this place called Cave Beach. It was a small town that looked like a good resting point for me. In agony for two hours on this drive from my headache I finally made it, but when I started to slow my speed down off the Pacific Highway my engine was screaming with high revs like I was flooring it. It did this all the way to Cave Beach parking lot and then I turned it off and the thing kept rumbling and going, trying to get all the gas out. I middle age man came up concerned and tried to check to see what the problem was. I told him it could be my battery causing it because the same day I took it into the auto store seeing why my battery light was on and they said it was all good, just needs a recharge (meaning your alternator isn’t working right). The dude said no it’s probably your timing belt and took a look at it and said I don’t know take it in to a mechanic and see what they say tomorrow. So with all this bad news I decided to relax on the beach all night and wait for the morning, bring out the ukulele and chill my mind.

 

In the morning, I decided to clear my mind on top of the night before, and woke up for the sunset and did some yoga on the beach. That shit helped a lot and I was like alright fantastic let’s go to the mechanic. I called one mechanic that said he would check it out and went there and we looked and I told him everything that was going wrong and in the end he told me I had a blown gasket! My heart sunk and I thought my journey was over but I told the mechanic there’s no way I checked the oil and it looks good and check the gaskets yesterday and looked for stuff in the coolant. Everything was clean. The guy even did a chemical test on the radiator to make sure and the blue stuff didn’t change color meaning no blown gasket. I decided to take a chance and try to make it up to Port Macquarie, a two hour drive up north. I thought well if it’s fucked it’s fucked and I can’t fix nor sell her so what the hell. The whole time driving the engine was revving and I pulled over once to cool the engine down, fill her back up, and keep on going. I then stopped for gas on a quarter tank left and started to get going again and the engine didn’t turn on. Like the auto store guy said, the alternator isn’t charging the battery. I was literally in the middle of nowhere and fucked with no jumper cables. I saw this dude next to me pumping and I said, “hey man you mind rolling me down that little hill so I can jump start it in second?” The good man said yes and boom she was back running again. I made a decision that I had to get the alternator fixed that day or at least recharge my battery so I stopped in this boon dock town by a river and took it to an electrician mechanic. Guy took out my battery and charged it and then took out my alternator to see that the brushes were completely wore down. The mate gave me new brushes in the alternator and tada I was driving again and my engine finally sounded normal like she did the first day I got her.

 

I have made it now to Coffs Harbor and slept by the beaches on my way up. Each time the beaches have been getting better and today the beach I went to was aweing. This was what I was looking for in Australia and hope has been restored. Money is a little down more than I like obviously with these fixes but I am determined to make it up to Gold Coast and surf the waves and wakeboard the rivers and meet some awesome people. There I will find something sweet and true. I know it. More pictures will be added to the next blog and it will be more soon I promise. Again this blog is just a reflection of my travels in the most general ways and sorry this shit’s 2100 words. Till next time.