takapuna and melbourne

hello you lovely people!

as you can see i've been changing my blog. my new zealand working holiday has ended and i'm back in singapore, yay! i'm kinda behind on blogging, but i'll just go on from last time...
...so i ended up staying in takapuna until the beginning of june. it was awesome and i've learned so much working at the restaurant. in the beginning i only worked a few nights a week, but when we got a new head chef, this soon became over 50 hours a week! during the day i helped out with preparations (i think i must have peeled about a million onions, see the restaurant's name to the right) and that's when i discovered how much i enjoy working with food and learning about cooking. i was lucky enough to have some amazing people working with me and teaching me stuff. despite all the drama which was caused by the changes the new chef was making, i had a fantastic time and i'd like to thank everyone at the restaurant for making this happen. i'm also so incredibly happy that i got to live with my friends. mau and clare have moved back to holland in the mean time and i already miss them so much! it was so much fun and i can't wait to see them again!
i decided to go to melbourne and visit a girl i met at sydney mardi gras who lives and studies there. so after about three months in taka i went to melbourne for two weeks. in the meantime i sent my laptop and some other stuff home, because i just had too much luggage!! i'm slowly dematerializing myself and it feels great. everytime i leave a place i just give so much stuff to people and it kinda feels like closing up a chapter and moving on to a fresh start...anyway, i went to melbourne for two weeks and it was absolutely amazing. unfortunately me and her didn't work out afterwords, but i still have really good memories and i'll try not to sound too bitter hahaha.

the view from our balcony, me passing time in the very boring takapuna, clare and mau

crazy claretje, crazy giles and proud mau with his first car ever!

giles trying my sunnies, me and clare, me at dutch delight, a dutch restaurant where we had poffertjes and mau trying my sunnies

below some pictures i took in the restaurant

the left pic shows where i slaved over piles and piles of dishes every night!

a bunch of my fantastic co-workers :)

like i said, my two weeks with linda in melbourne were amazing. i've realized now that trying to have a relationship and caring about someone who lives in a different country is a very big challenge and i failed. especially while traveling and living an uncertain (mostly financially) lifestyle isn't a good base for a healthy relationship i guess...it works for some though, but apparently not for me. ok, i'll not bore you with all the details and drama, so let me show you the beauty of the grampians and the great ocean road. (we didn't spend much time in the city itslef, but i will show you more about melbourne next time i'm there)

the grampians national park is a giant park 235 km west of melbourne and features a series of sandstone mountain ranges. it's the home
of over 800 plant species and 200 bird species. there are heaps of tracks and tramping routes and rock climbing is a very popular thing to do as well. linda had arranged an amazing cabin for us where we stayed for two nights. i finally got to see some real aussie kangeroo's hopping around and we almost got attacked by an emu (an emu is related to the ostrich and quite frightening when running instowards you in a high pace...) since i'm not that much of a tramper we drove to a few lookout points and spent the rest of our time just uhm, hanging out...

      
beaufort, a cute tiny town where we stopped to stretch our legs

above some pics i took when we were walking around in the park and here left is a view of the grampians from the boroka lookout. linda really wanted me to see the 12 apostles, so we took a roadtrip on the great ocean road, which is a 243 km stretch of road constructed between 1919 and 1932. it was built as a living memorial to the servicemen who fought in the first world war. after a while you reach port campbell national park and the twelve apostels, a collection of limestone stacks formed by erosion (but i'll get into that later). it was amazing, every turn showed us a different gorgeous beach view and i couldn't stop taking photos and being hypnotized by the blue ocean and massive crashing waves :)

beneath some pics on the road

the first to are made on the gibson steps, when you walk down you see the first apostle and left is the view from one of the many lookouts (if you click on it, you'll see some people standing in the right corner on top of the hill, just so you'll realize how colossal these stacks really are)the rock stacks are the temporary remnants of a retreating limestone coastline, under constant attack by the sea. cliff faces are being eroded at a rate of about two centimeters each year and here's how it works:
1. wave action erodes the cliff face, leaving harder rock as headlands
2. waves eat away the rocks at sea level, forming caves on each side
3. the arch collapses, leaving a rock 'stack'
4. further undercutting by waves and opening up of vertical cracks in the rock by rain and saltwater, gradually reduce the stack to a low platform or reef.

this stack is called the razorback. the sharp edges and bumps along its back are caused by wind-blown spray, which hardens small areas of rock. the softer rock around these erode away,leaving an uneven surface. wave energy channeled along the side of the stack carves the deep smooth grooves just above sea level. with one wave every 14 seconds there's lots of erosion. the razorback once extended much further out to sea. the force of the waves gradually eroded and undercut the base of the stack. vertical cracks in the rock were widened by rainwater, forming a line of weakness. huge blocks of rock then collapsed into the sea, leaving the rock shelf you can see today.

there's a part of the park called loch ard gorge, also known as shipwreck coastline, where a ship from england going to melbourne crashed. here's the story as told on the signs in the park:

' on 2 march 1878 the clipper loch ard left gravesend, england for melbourne under the command of captain george gibb. the ship carried 36 crew, 18 passengers and a mixed cargo weighing 2275 tons. on the night of 31 may the crew and passengers held a party on board to celebrate the end of the three-month journey. next day the ship would enter port philip heads.

land was very near but a thick mist obscured the horizon and the cape otway light could not be seen. concerned for the ship's safety, captain gibb stayed on deck throughout the night and when the mist lifted at 4am, high, pale cliffs were revealed. captain gibb set full sail to turn the loch ard away from danger, but wind and current carried the ship towards the cliffs. sails were then lowered and anchors dropped, but they dragged across the ocean floor. in a final desperate attempt, the anchors were cut and sails again raised. the ship began to make headway nearly clearing the cliffs, but the bow struck a shallow reef and stuck fast.

water flooded into the cabins and waves swept across the deck, hampering attempts to launch the lifeboats. paralyzed with fear, the passengers clung to one another and, amidst their screams and cries, the ship slipped into the silent depths below...

only two of the 54 people on board the loch ard survived: 18 year old eva carmicheal, one of a family of eight irish immigrants, and ship's apprentice tom pearle. after the ship went down tom drifted for hours under an upturned lifeboat. when the tide turned at dawn he was swept into this gorge (see above right). 
short after reaching the beach he heard cries from the water and saw eva clinging to a spar. tom quickly swam out and struggled for an hour to bring her to the beach. he sheltered her in the cave (see left) and revived her with some brandy, which has washed ashore. then, exhausted, they both slept. upon waking, tom climbed out of the gorge to search for help. he came upon two stockmen from nearby glenample station. the owner, hugh gibson, made immediate arrangements to get eva out of the gorge and back to the safety of the homestead'

after melbourne i flew to wellington, where i spent the final months of my working holiday. but more about that next time :)

last weeks in paihia and trip to sydney (mardi gras!!)

i just realized that it has been forever since my last post...i'm chilling out with clare, mau and giles after a very very awesome week in sydney.
i finally found a job in paihia the last two weeks of my stay there, but unfortunately they only needed me a couple of hours, so i didn't really make a lot of cash. the money i still had is all gone and circulating somewhere in the gay bars on oxford street ;) (oxford street is sydney's gay area)
paihia was so much fun, i miss the place itself, the people i've met, the mousetrap, my fellow housekeepers and of course having the beach a two minute walk away. because i was trying to spend the least money as possible so i'd have more for sydney, i've missed out on the incredible trips you can do in paihia. maybe i'll go back in the future and do them all when i'm a millionaire, because that will definitely happen :S

anyway, let me show you what i mean:

some views

that's kemper, we hung out most of the time, met him while housekeeping in auckland

while chilling out on the beach


gorgeous clouds and bugs (if you click on the middle one you'll see that's it actually looking at me, freaky!)


kings road, where most hostels and bars are located, norwegian dude cooking bbq (healthiest meal i've had during my entire stay haha), some of the people i've met

hayley kemper and luke walking to waitangi. luke came to paihia with kemper and i've also met him in auckland, we spent everyday checking out girls on the beach and just chilling out. they were housekeeping in a hostel across the road and hayley came in a couple of weeks later, also as a housekeeper. had so much fun with them!!
so waitangi day is a national holiday in new zealand. on february 6th, 1840 the treaty of waitangi was signed at waitangi, making new zealand a part of the british empire and guaranteeing maori rights to their land and the rights of british citizens (maori are the indigenous polynesian people of new zealand). waitangi day has been celebrated since 1960. the other two pictures show a 'waka taua', a maori word for war canoe.


above a haka (genre of traditional maori dance) performance and the waitangi beach

concerts the day before waitangi day

below are some pictures of the second annual golden jandal race in paihia (jandal is the new zealand word for flip flop). it's a three legged race where a beer has to be sculled in 7 bars on a special route in the town. the theme this year was noah's ark, so everyone had to come dressed as a pair of animals. the money was donated to the spca. let me quote a few rules as stated on the entry form:

'one vessel must be consumed in its entirely by each competitor at the designated 'watering holes' on the prescribed route'


'participating in this event may result in bestiality and/or pregnancy'

'at least one jandal must be worn per competitor'
'competitors must remain bound at the ankle at all times, and until the last drink of the event has been consumed'

'teams are required to carry two discharge bags, into which all oral emissions must be deposited and disposed of as soon as possible in the nearest bin provided. should oral emissions occur anywhere on course without the use of such bag, or bag is not properly disposed of, automatic disqualification will occur'

some people gave up halfway, jake the owner of the mousetrap who unfortunately didn't win this year and bridget who works at the reception and was one of my roomies, beers at the finish line

i hitchhiked back to auckland (which only took me three rides and really was not scary at all) and stayed with clare mau and giles. flew to sydney two days later, where i stayed with sareh, an girl from iran, her mum and sister. i found them on couchsurfing.com which is a website where you can find couches all over the world to crash on. i created a profile a while back when i first heard about it and decided to minimilize my expenses in sydney by staying with some local people. they were so incredibly sweet and hospitable, i felt at home immediately when i arrived. we spent my first day barbequiing in the park where some guys were playing cricket (how australian can it get). i've spent a lot of time talking to sareh's mum and she's just such an amazing and inspiring woman. she's done a lot of good things for the iranian community in sydney, like organizing projects for people who've just moved to australia and need to adjust to life there. but also teaching farsi to kids and creative writing to iranian women, so they can finally express themselves trough writing and hopefully let go of all the shit they've experienced in iran. sareh is also a pretty inspiring person. she's lived in tokyo for a couple of years and travelled a lot. all her stories about japan really made me want to go there and check it out for myself, especially tokyo, which seems like the craziest place on earth. we hung out a lot, but she wasn't in sydney during my last few days, because she moved to iran. i didn't spend a lot of time with her sister, because she works a lot, but we had a lot of laughs and i even gave her relationship advice haha, like i know anything about boy-girl stuff. all in all, great people and i'm happy to have met them, they definitely made my trip even better than it was.

sareh and her mom, josh a friends of sarehs making a face with sticks, sunset

cricket in the park, sareh, her friend mel and her mom, me at the bbq

i checked out all the touristy stuff the rest of the week during the day and of course partied hardcore almost every night (see right). boy, i've never seen so many lesbians in one place, it was heaven, gheghe. the party after the parade kinda sucked though. it was 90% gay men and 10% their straight girlfriends, pff. we found out that there was a party just for us girls, but i'd already payed for my ticket in advance and couldn't sell it anymore! better luck next time...the parade itself was incredible and made me so happy and i felt so proud and i think i'm even happier about the fact that i'm gay than i was before, didn't know that was even possible! first some touristy sydney stuff:

bondi beach:

circular quay (with the famous harbour bridge and opera house):

chinatown:

this year's mardi gras theme was 'nations united'. i'd like to quote david imrie on this, as written in the mardi gras official season guide, frankly because i couldn't explain it to you as well as he does:

'this year's theme recognises sydney's unique position as one of the global centres of the queer world and mardi gras' place as the annual highlight where glbt peoples, from wherever they hail, can strut their stuff right here in our beautiful harbour city. but nations united is about more than just recognising the world on our doorstep. it's also about dragging our gaze from the distractions of the strip to those far-flung lands where peple like us simply aren't tolerated. and, while civil unions and gay marriages are quite the fashion in some parts of the west, in countries such as the u.s. bigots are busy shoring up the barricades against any form of official recognition for our relationships. even here, we still lack scores of rights many overseas visitors to mardi gras now take in their stride. nations united is about our victories, those that awaite us, and uniting as one global community while indulging in just a little of what we fancy...'

the fun and crazyness started many hours before the parade:

and grew exponentially as the dykes on bikes drove up and down the route, starting of the parade:

so that's what i've been doing since my last post. i found a job as a kitchenhand here in takapuna and i'll stay here until i have some money saved up to go to a new place again. we all have jobs at the moment, so we might move to a bigger appartment in a couple of weeks. it's nice to have a break from hostels and enjoy some luxury. also having people around that you know from back home is great. i'd actually like to go back to australia, but i might do that when my visa in new zealand runs out. you can only apply for a working holiday once in your life, so it would be kind of a waste to not stay until the end.