Our Impossible Problem

New York Highline

It has just struck me all of a sudden that we’ve been in Australia for 4 months now, which you probably wouldn’t know based on our blog. We’ve barely written a thing about it. A couple of posts at most.

Part of me wants to make excuses. It’s winter in Melbourne at the moment so things are cold and unappealing. We barely have any money and don’t want to waste it on going out. But I think the truth is that we’re not happy in Australia and have no compulsion to explore it.

We never really wanted to come here. It was an act of necessity rather than anything else. We had no choice.

Jamie is American. I am English. What this creates is a situation where we can only visit places where we can both get the same or similar visas. At the same time, we need to make money somehow as life doesn’t come for free. All of our travels are supported with hard work. We get nothing for free.

So wherever we go, we need to be able to work. This means options are limited. Before arriving in Australia, we had a number of options available to us:

  • Head to Southeast Asia and attempt to make a living off online freelance writing work, or make our own money through digital means. Something we’re reluctant to do as there’s so much competition out there and we barely even know where to start.
  • Head to another country where we could both get working holiday visas of which Australia is the only realistic one left.
  • Go back to teaching English in Asia for another year, which drove us to madness the first time.

Going back to one of our home countries wasn’t an option due to visa restrictions in the UK and USA. So we had to keep travelling. The choice was pretty much made for us. Australia it was!

The problem though is we both want to go home. Or create a home. Settle down. After travelling for almost 4 years I’m pretty sick of working menial jobs. I’m starting to feel like I’m wasting my life and need to do something with it. I’m almost thirty and although I’ve had some great experiences, I have very little to show for that time. I want to do something meaningful, be part of a community.

I need some roots. When travelling these roots just keep getting pulled up. Over and over. A tree can never grow if you keep pulling it out of the ground.

So we live in Australia, but our minds are elsewhere. Trying to make the best of a bad situation. Jamie works casually for a cafe for cash in hand and at the moment I’m unemployed, although I spent a few months in a call center. Our time here is spent mostly in misery, doing things we don’t like. Trying to save up money to put towards an unknown future.

If this sounds depressing, it’s because it is. Arriving in Melbourne, trying to find a job I didn’t even want, to live in a place that didn’t interest me. I started wondering why we were bothering. The only reason we’re here is to stay together, but that’s not enough when the rest of our lives are miserable. Without a light at the end of the tunnel, it seems like we’re just treading water.

This is a problem I never thought I’d experience in my life. Trying to find a place where I can live and work happily with my partner. There seems to be no easy solution.

I’ve been searching my mind since we arrived in Melbourne. The result is nothing but despair. There is no easy solution and being confronted with that knowledge has meant confronting myself. Not long after starting my call center job, I started seeing a counsellor. I could feel my mental health dipping. Not wanting to get out of bed, sometimes not wanting to live.

We spent our time discussing how I felt about myself. Mostly how I didn’t feel good enough. All these problems thrown at me simply bring back a common feeling I’ve often felt, which is I’m simply not good enough. That I’m useless. That I can’t do anything. I revealed that I was finding it hard to look for work as I’d just look at the job descriptions and think, “How could I ever do this!?” My opinion of myself was low to say the least. I had no confidence. My counsellor found it to be a bit strange.

“How many people do you think can travel for four years?”
“I don’t know. Not many, I guess.”
“Ok, and do you think a person who isn’t confident could do it?”
“I suppose not, no.”

The counsellor was a bit of a revelation for me as so many of my incorrect views were shattered. I’ve always felt like I wasn’t good enough, like if I wasn’t the best then I was shit. But after some discussion I was brought to the conclusion that this is just some rubbish that’s stuck in my head. Just because you’re not the best, that doesn’t mean you’re not good at something.

Soon after arriving in Melbourne, I wrote about passion. At that time, I was starting to feel the expectation of a year in Melbourne on my shoulders. Knowing I’d be spending another year doing things I didn’t want to. To spend a year in purgatory.

To try to build a more balanced life, I decided to pursue some passions in the form of volunteering with some non-profits. The idea being that this can take me one step closer to getting paid to do these things I love when I settle down. When I finally plant those roots.

So far it’s been helpful. My time in Melbourne hasn’t been completely unproductive. It has some meaning.

But still that problem looms over us. Will we ever get to settle down and will it be together?

Our current shaky plan is to head back to England in January. The light at the end of our tunnel. We hope Jamie can find a place to study a Masters degree and get a student visa. It’ll give me enough time to satisfy the requirements for her partner’s visa. Maybe that will take us closer to settling down. Jamie’s not enthusiastic about doing it and it’ll mean more debt. But there aren’t many other choices.

Until then we’ll focus on getting by, try to make enough money to get out of Australia and still be happy enough until then. When we start again, hopefully it’ll be for the last time.

The Adventures of Housesitting in New Zealand

An old barn in Masterton, New Zealand. When Daniel told me we received an e-mail from a family asking us to housesit for five weeks, I didn’t need much convincing to say yes. What was even better was the fact it wasn’t just any old house (well, it was old). This was a farmhouse. And you know what that means? Farm animals. Daniel said there would be cows, sheep, chickens, a horse, dog, and cat.

“But wait, we don’t have any experience with farm animals,” I whined. [Read more…]

Motivating Yourself to Travel

canoeing in vancouver

Canoeing in Vancouver

Seven or so years ago, I was at university and severely depressed. I could barely peel myself out of bed in the morning, I didn’t have the energy for anything. Going to the kitchen to make breakfast was like climbing a mountain, so most days I didn’t bother. It was easier to starve. Eventually, the hunger would become too painful and only then would I stumble to make a sandwich. I was completely unmotivated.

I was completely unmotivated. [Read more…]

Is Finding Yourself Through Travel for Idiots?

Man meditating at sunsetTravel, eventually, turns everybody into an insufferable prick. Maybe at home you are the most level-headed person in the world without the tiniest shred of pretension. But spend a long enough time away and it will happen. You will turn into one of those people. You know the type I’m talking about. The people who “find themselves.”

[Read more…]

Our First Week in Australia (On A Working Holiday)

Bike rentals in Melbourne, Australia CBD.
Around a week ago now, our plane took off from Christchurch and we watched as New Zealand disappeared beneath our feet.

After our 11 months in New Zealand, it started to feel a lot like home. However, it seemed like we had explored it all and that it had no more secrets. Like an on old lover, we’d gone through the honeymoon phase and were now completely in the comfort phase. We’d stopped trying so hard to explore the country, preferring to spend our days sitting in our pjyamas with it, being lazy.

We learnt to love New Zealand in the end, but as so often happens we found ourselves falling into a dull routine. It was about the right time to head to Australia. I don’t know if we’ll ever go back to New Zealand, does it have any more to offer us? Maybe we’ll miss it in future on lonely nights. Homesick for a place that’s not even our home.

Now we find ourselves in Australia. A new place. A new home?

[Read more…]

A Horrific Help Exchange on the Banks Peninsula

burlington bay from above

The Banks Peninsula is a small, hilly circle of land that juts out into the sea close to Christchurch. Due to the large amount of beautiful bays and little villages, the peninsula seems to be the perfect weekend getaway for Christchurchers. For the same reason, we thought it would be a great place to base ourselves in our last week in New Zealand.

It’s close to the city, I told myself while typing out an email to a HelpX host. We’ll be able to pop into Christchurch in the day or do some sightseeing on the peninsula. That’s what I thought.

Until we found ourselves sitting in The Bloody Legend looking up on a steep road heading right into the hills. Nothing on the website said anything about this.

[Read more…]

Nature Tours on the Otago Peninsula

sunset from taiaroa head

After weeks spent in rural towns, Dunedin came as a bit of a shock. It seems like most places on New Zealand’s South Island are barely big enough to qualify as towns, let alone cities. So coming into a big city like Dunedin is a bit of an eye-opener.

At night the stars no longer shine, the city lights too bright. The rolling green fields vanish, replaced with wooden houses on tidy streets. The buildings grow upwards, looming over you, covering the sky. For once you’re in a place where people out number the sheep.

[Read more…]

Milford Sound – One of New Zealand’s Biggest Disappointments?

mitre peak milford sound

The more popular something is, the less inclined I am to enjoy it. Maybe I’ve always been a hipster at heart. Snorting with derision at anything popular. Or maybe I can never be satisfied by something with high expectations.

Expectations were the reason I couldn’t really enjoy Milford Sound. [Read more…]

The One Where we Say Goodbye to The Bloody Legend

Girl sitting on a car in Wellington, New Zealand.

didn’t think much of the Mazda Familia when I first saw it. It was mostly white, except for that dark green patch on the right side of the hood. There were dings and scratches—surely the norm for a 22-year-old car. The interior complemented the exterior—faded and worn, the radio broken (naturally). You’d never catch me driving such a thing back home in the States, but I was in New Zealand and on a budget. It’d only have to last a year.

Besides, no one I knew would see me in it.

[Read more…]

Hiking in Arthur’s Pass

man taking photo from viewpoint on bealey spur track

What I want you to know – but hope you don’t tell any fucking tourists – is that Arthur’s Pass is without a doubt one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand.

Sitting halfway between the West Coast and Christchurch, it’s an easy trip from either. Yet it remains relatively quiet as most people seem to see it as a place to stop-off in, rather than to explore.

Those that only rush through will miss out on so much.

When you escape from the village, you’ll find quiet trails. Few people around to bother you. Despite some of the walks being stupidly easy.

[Read more…]