The Wondering Jew

A killer super-spider

That’s not one. Which, as you’re about to find out, is quite fortunate, because if it was, I’d be dead by now. I encountered this little fella yesterday, and while he’s not a funnel web, our encounter did lead to me finding out quite a bit about the little bastards.

Yesterday, I was outside working on the garden and doing my best to retain as much blood as possible, much to the chagrin of the hordes of mosquitoes who were doing their level best to drain me of every last drop of it. While overturning a few mounds of earth and pulling out weeds, I turned round at one point to see this guy sitting on a rock, completely motionless, just staring at me. I imagine I disturbed his home while yanking up all the roots that wound through the soil out there, and he probably just came out to see what the hell was going on. He didn’t attack me though, he just stood there looking at me as if to say “Dude, what the hell!? I’m trying to sleep!” In fact, he sat there motionless long enough for me to go back inside, grab my camera, and take this picture of him. It didn’t seem like he was going to attack me, but still, being conscious of the fact that Australia is home to some pretty nasty spiders, I thought it might be prudent to try and identify this one before carrying on working around it.

So, I went inside and looked up an Australian spider identification chart. The first one on the list was the funnel web, and I was quite relieved to see that this wasn’t one. The funnel web is big (up to 70mm end to end) and black, which huge muscular fangs.  As I read on, I learned more and more about the funnel web spider, and the more I learned, the more disturbed I became.

Funnel web venom, it turns out, is among the most harmful venom to humans of any animal on the planet. It’s a veritable cocktail of nasty chemicals and toxins, any one of which on its own is enough to give you a ball-achingly bad day, but the main one is a substance called atraxotoxin. This is the stuff that will mess you up. I’m not going to go into details about the symptoms, but let me just say that if you’re lucky enough to have other people around when you get bitten by one of these things – lucky in that if there’s nobody else around to call an ambulance for you, it’s pretty much curtains – rest assured that the cost of your survival will be the knowledge that your friends and family got to watch you soil yourself while you spasm uncontrollably for at least two hours, while in excruciating pain. And that’s just to start.

So it’s safe to say you don’t want to get bitten by one of these. But that’s ok, as our parents made sure we learned when we were young that spiders are probably much more scared of you than you are of them. Well, whoever made that up clearly never heard of the funnel web. They’re not scared of people. In fact, they’re actually described as aggressive spiders. What that means in practical terms is that whereas most spiders will run away given the opportunity, these guys are up for a ruck, they actually want to bite you. They don’t run away, and to make matters worse, they don’t just give you a quick nip to scare you off while they make good their escape. No, during a funnel web attack, they clamp onto their victim with a vice-like death grip and bite repeatedly until, well presumably until they get bored or distracted by another tasty looking human. I came across one university medical department whose website stated that “in most cases the experience is horrific”. This isn’t some shmoe’s opinion, this is a university medical department! And don’t think covering up will protect you; their fangs are powerful enough to pierce a fingernail with ease, and their incessant repeated fang-jabs have been known to go straight through thick leather shoes.

Still, not to worry, these are exotic spiders, and quite rare in densely populated areas. Well, actually that’s not true at all. In fact, they’re extremely common in residential areas, and are known to quite frequently wonder into people’s homes, especially in the summer. You see, on a hot summer night, the male funnel web, feeling a bit randy, wanders off into the night looking for a mate. They generally end up in people’s houses, and being somewhat pissed off that rather than finding a hot piece of funnel web tail to schtup, they’ve come across the likes of you and me, they decide a good biting will be in order instead. They’re also known to quite commonly wander into swimming pools, where they can survive under water for up to 3 weeks.

But their natural habitat is soil, they’re ground spiders. They’re called funnel webs because they live in holes which they dig into the soil and line with web, creating a funnel. So I’m sure you can imagine that all those holes in the ground, which I had previously dismissed as unimportant, suddenly became much more foreboding.

Still, all this is pretty horrific, and is enough to engender within me a deeply ingrained hatred of funnel web spiders (and I love spiders!), but that’s not the worst of it. The worst thing is, their venom is only harmful to primates. It’s completely harmless to other animals; cats, dogs and rabbits are known to be bitten by these things and walk away unharmed. That means they actually evolved a specific venom just to screw with us. I think we did something to piss these guys off in the distant primordial past. I don’t know what, but whatever it was, they sure as hell haven’t forgotten about it.

So what we have is a spider that not only has one of the deadliest venom’s known to man, but a stinking attitude problem to go with it. These spiders having this venom is like someone giving Osama Bin Laden control of the world’s biggest nuclear weapons arsenal; in short, a freaking bad idea. I don’t know whether I’m better off with my new found knowledge of funnel web spiders, so that I can be better prepared, or whether ignorance is bliss. Either way, my mission in life is now to stay the hell away from the vicious little bastards.

Anyway, back to the picture at the top. So it’s not a funnel web, which I’m sure you can appreciate given the circumstances is a very good thing, but then what is it? I don’t know. It’s not on any of the spider identification charts I found, and doesn’t fit any of the other descriptions. Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as a funnel web…right?

Merry christmas!

The Wondering Jew x

It’s been over a week since I left for surf camp, and although the trip was only two and a half days, I’ve spent a good portion of the time since recovering, which is why I’ve only just gotten around to posting about it. Still, apologies for the delay, and without further ado, here is my full report. No pictures I’m afraid, cameras and the ocean don’t mix.

Day One

The trip began outside Sydney Central YHA, where I was told to be waiting at 7.15pm for a ‘luxury coach’, which would pick us up and take us 3 hours up the coast to a place called Bulahdelah, where the surf school is based. When I got there, a small handful of people were scattered outside. I considered approaching some of them to see if they were also waiting to go to surf school, but it’s a busy hostel, and there were a lot of people coming and going, so I thought the chances were pretty slim. But mostly I’m just not that sociable.

Eventually and somewhat late, a rusty, battered minibus started to pull round the corner, with We Are The Champions blaring out at full volume. I couldn’t hear that, though, as it was drowned out by the caterwauling of the 15 or so crispy-fried twenty-somethings occupying the bus. Sticking their heads out the windows, and constantly looking around to make sure they had the full attention of the passersby (in a totally non-obvious way), they slipped in and out of the song, taking every opportunity between lyrics and mid line to scream and wave.

As the minibus pulled up outside the hostel, it became fairly apparent that this was our ‘luxury coach’, and I felt overwhelmed with a sense of despair when the occupants of the bus beckoned for us all to get on. Now, I love to party as much as the next guy (actually, probably more), and I don’t know, maybe I’m getting old, but I suddenly realised that I actually really did want to learn to surf. Sure, I wanted to have a good time, but I was worried that this trip was going to rapidly degrade into nothing more than a booze-soaked beach party which, while fun, didn’t seem worth the $200 I had paid for the trip. But mostly, I just thought they were a bunch of loud-mouthed idiots.

Much to my elation, it transpired that they were returning from their trip, and were getting off the bus. Not satisfied that they’d sufficiently caught the attention of the entire population of New South Wales, they made sure they did this as loudly as possible too. I won’t go into detail, as I feel it’s probably time to move on and start describing my trip rather than theirs, but I will say that we were given warnings not to use the pool or the showers at surf camp. Don’t ask why, you don’t want to know.

Eventually Steve (our driver and surf instructor for the duration of our trip), after a cheeky smooch with a lobster girl from the previous group, managed to get us all onto the bus, and them off. Once they stopped banging on the sides and trying to climb in through the windows (if you’re picturing some kind of Dawn of the Dead scenario, you’d be about right), the bus pulled away. Within a few minutes after that, we pulled up again to pick up a crate of beer, and then we were back on the road.

The trip up to surf camp was pretty uneventful, but did take close to four hours. It probably needn’t have taken that long, but there was a stop for dinner, and then I had to ask Steve to pull over again; drinking beer on a 3-4 hour bus trip was nice and all, but inevitably lead to me needing to pay the price all men must eventually pay to the porcelain god. Anyway, we eventually got to camp at about 11.30pm, to find another group on a surf trip, rather inebriated and gathered round a fire. After dumping our bags in our cabin, a few of us joined them for a drink or two, before turning in for the night.

Day Two

At 7am we got woken up for breakfast, before being given time for a quick freshen up before departure. We were all marched round to the board shed (which is a shed, in which they keep the surf boards), handed a wetsuit, and told to jump on the bus, while Steve attached a trailer to the back carrying all our surf boards. We drove about half an hour to a beach at Booti Booti, where we unloaded the boards and awaited our first lesson. The surf technique they taught us is what they called the ‘four point’ method. It involves four distinct steps in the process between paddling to match the wave and standing up on your surf board. I won’t go into the details here, you’ll just have to try it out for yourself!

Perhaps a little over eager to just get out into the ocean and get on my board, I hit the waves. The water was actually warm, so I shunned the wetsuit in favour of just my boardies. This was a mistake. As we all learned that day, the wetsuit does more than just keep you warm, it offers you protection from sunburn, and the severe chaffing you get on your chest or stomach from the board. Trust me, I’m not exaggerating, it’s severe. My nipples actually scabbed over.

That aside, the actual surfing itself was great fun, and I actually managed to stand up a few times, catch some waves, and do some actual surfing! Most of the other people in the group did much better though, some seemed like naturals. Having said that, at one point when three of us had caught the same wave and seemed headed for a certain collision, on pure instinct alone I managed to steer my board out the way. I would have stayed up, too, if I’d have focused on myself rather than looking back at them over my shoulder and laughing. Yeah, I fell off. And yeah, I deserved it. But my balance is pretty good, and once I was up on my board, I was able to stay up and surf pretty well. Actually standing up is the bit I have yet to master.

After a few hours surfing in the morning we had a break for lunch. After lunch the lesson turned to some more advanced techniques, but unfortunately I had to sit the rest of the day out due to injury. I’m not going to tell you what that injury was. Trust me, you don’t want to know. But needless to say, I spent the next few hours feeling sullen and disappointed, as I watched my surfing companions frolicking in the ocean and catching all the best waves. Not to mention feeling somewhat scared due to the nature of this injury.

After that, we packed up and piled back into the minibus. We headed to a small parade of shops, where most of the group bought crisps and ice cream. I went into a pharmacy to see about tending to my wounds. After that, we all piled back into the bus and headed to a pub (well, a recreation centre/social club, but they had a bar), where we bought a drink and then sat on the shore of a beautiful lake. I didn’t think to ask the name of the lake, I wish I had now.

After we finished our drinks we headed back to base camp. Everyone had a quick shower and freshened up before heading back to the bar/club house for dinner. We wasted no time in getting started on beer and sangria while we waited for dinner to be served. Before to long, the food had been served and eaten, the sun had set, and the party was in full swing. This stayed quite civilised for the first couple of hours, despite a long round of staff vs. guests drinking games, which included dancing on tables.

After a couple of hours, most people went to bed. Believe it or not, surfing is actually quite physically taxing. Still, there were at least 20 or so of us still awake and still drinking. By this point the camp manager had come to join us, and had insisted on ploughing me and and Bill (an air traffic controller from Charlotte, North Carolina, who was on the trip with his wife) with tequila. Things had definitely heated up by this stage, those that were staying the distance were picking up the pace.

The pool party had now lived up to it’s name, with the pool being occupied by a number of people, mostly fully clothed, who had either jumped, or been thrown, in. I was lucky enough to be given some advanced warning that I was next, and with my wallet in one pocket, and my iPhone in another, I did the only sensible thing. I stripped to my underwear and jumped in. It’s safe to say that by now my inhibitions had dropped slightly. But rather than just jump into the pool, I did what at the time seemed like an incredibly clever and macho thing to do. I decided to somersault in, and landed with a resounding smack! sun-burnt back first straight onto the water. Ouch. Still, time for one or two more drinks, and then it was time to go to bed.

Day Three

What seemed like five minutes later, we got the breakfast wake up call. I personally would have preferred more sleep. But I soldiered on, got out of bed, got ready, and headed down to breakfast. After all, I’d come to surf, and surf I would, dammit! So after the same routine as the previous day, we headed off again. This time, we went to a different beach, Seal Rocks. This was, without doubt, the most beautiful beach I’ve ever been to in my life. Admittedly, I haven’t been to many, and the few to which I have been have been overrun by people, ice cream stands, and littered with used condoms, but nonetheless, this was a beautiful place. The water was warm, and also perfectly crystal clear. Chest deep in seawater, I could still see to the bottom.

I was recovered enough from my injury to get back on my board, so I did a bit more surfing. I struggled though, partially because I’d fallen behind the rest of the group, and in my haste and eagerness to keep up, I pretty much ignored the four point method, and spent most of my time trying to jump up on the board. That didn’t work so well. But also, I’d picked up a slightly more advanced board than the one I’d been using the previous day, and I just couldn’t get the traction I needed, which meant my feet kept slipping off. Still, managed to stand up a few times again.

Interestingly, whereas nobody had worn a wetsuit the day before, everyone had one on now. They were short legged though, and while I managed to avoid sunburn nearly everywhere, the backs of my knees got charred to a crisp. I didn’t feel this until hours later, but when I did, I sincerely regretted not applying enough sunscreen there. Unfortunately it was only a morning of surfing, and not a full day, as we needed to head back to Sydney in the afternoon. We packed up just after lunch and headed back to camp.

A quick shower later and we were back on the road. This was what must have been a much quieter trip than the previous group; nearly everyone was asleep. It was uneventful, and after a fun packed couple of days, we arrived back where we started. While I certainly didn’t master the art of surfing, I did learn the basics, and whereas now I’ve got the confidence to head down to a beach on my own, rent a board, and just get out there and practice, there’s no way I would have been able to do that before this trip. I wouldn’t have known where to start. This was a great trip, and I met some lovely people along the way, none of whom I’ll be keeping in touch with, before you ask. Nothing wrong with any of them, but like I said, I’m just not that sociable.

The Week Since

As it’s been a while since my last post I thought I might as well fill in some of the gaps. Like I said at the beginning, for the first couple of days at least, I didn’t do anything other than recover from the trip. I was really badly sunburned, especially on the backs of my knees, which made it particularly difficult to walk. Beleive it or not, I was also sunburned on my scalp. I guess my hair’s not as thick as it used to be, I must be getting old. So the lessons were, lots of sunscreen, re-applied frequently, and wear a hat. It’s all the same advice you hear a million times usually ignore, but having personally experienced the effects of ignoring this advice, I think I’ll be respecting the sun a bit more from now on.

Still, not done much since, a bit more freelance work, a nice brunch on Sunday, and a trip into the City to meet with another recruitment consultant. Got some great advice from her, and while it’s getting closer to Christmas, I remain optimistic about the work situation. Speaking of which, I need to get some more work done, so I’m going to end it there. Blue Mountains next!

Ciao

Matt x

What the hell is this thing!? Actually, on second thoughts, I don’t want to know! Considering that this picture really belies the size of this thing (about the size of a stick of ginger, which is what I thought it was at first), and the fact that whatever it is, it lives in the garden, I think that under the circumstances, ignorance is bliss.

If you ask me, it’s probably some kind of advanced scout trooper from an insectile race of aliens, on their way to Earth to enslave all mankind. Either that, or it’s a hunter/killer supersoldier on a seek and destroy mission. Either way, the insectile race of impending alien overlords is clearly the most viable explanation for this hideous affront to my humanity. If you recognise it and want to let me and my curious readers know what it is, the ideal place to do so is in the comments. Don’t though. As I said, I don’t want to know! I’m sure there’s a more terrestrial explanation for this thing than my alien invader theory, but I fear the reality may be much, much worse. You can see a higher resolution image of this thing in the gallery by clicking on the image (but seriously, why would you want to!?). There’s also a couple of pictures of one of his pals, slightly smaller, but equally ugly. Probably some kind of insectile alien ninja, that’s only let me live this long to gain more insight into how to kill me more painfully.

In other news, I didn’t get the job I interviewed for. I don’t think I was convincing enough in my response when they told me they were worried I’d leave if something better came along. Still, it was my first interview and it’s slim pickings on the job market at the moment. So i’ll keep applying for jobs this week, but after that I might just give up looking for work and enjoy the summer. I’m thinking of taking a couple of two day trips over the next couple of weeks, one to the Blue Mountains this week, and then off to a surf school next week. Both look really fun, and are relatively cheap, with transport, accommodation and food included in the price. The surf school even has a pool party in the evening!

You know what? I’m not thinking about it anymore. I’m doing it. Stay posted for my report!

Matt x

So, today’s post was going to be all about the beautiful day I’ve had, and how I had this gorgeous walk down to Newport Beach, up through Bilgola Beach and Avalon, and then back. It was going to be about what a gorgeous day it’s been here, and how the views were breathtaking; the rugged cliffs and rock faces, the bush, the ocean, the crisp sandy beaches. It was even going to feature an amazing collection of photographs I took along the way. And then I realised something. And that’s that I don’t know jack about photography.

I discovered this while playing with a picture I took the other day. I was looking at it and thinking that although it had come out under exposed, and therefore quite dark, and not captured everything I had wanted the picture to be of, it was still quite atmospheric, and I was debating with myself whether I could pass it off as artistically creative rather than consigning it to the trashcan. And then something incredible happened, an epiphany of sorts. I moved a slider in the Levels dialog of the software I was using, and suddenly, the dark areas of the photograph, the bits that I thought light had not been captured from, the areas that I thought were forever lost, suddenly came into clear view. And I don’t mean the sort of grainy night vision you get with a camera that doesn’t really have night vision. These parts of my shot had actually been captured clearly on camera.

Anyway, to anyone who knows anything about photography, this will all seem quite basic, and there’s probably a few among you shouting “noob!” right now. I mean, I’ve read that this is what’s supposed to happen, I’ve just not experienced it first hand yet. Until now. What this means for you in practical terms, dear reader, is that I’ve discovered a newfound shame for all the pictures I’ve uploaded so far, and am reluctant to show you any more until I learn how to actually process them correctly. So, I have lots of stunning pictures of the Northern Beaches that I took today on my long walk (about 3 hours or so, by the way), but I’m not gonna let you see them. At least not yet.

In other news, I still haven’t heard anything back following the job interview. I called the recruiter, but they failed to call me back as promised, and then neglected to answer the phone again, so it’s been a weekend of no news on that front. The interview did go well though, and if I don’t get the job, it will be because they want someone at more of an entry level point in their career. That’s fine, whatever floats your boat. I did however have a great day on Friday doing the office setup and some training for Shared Conversations (I’ll change that to a link when their website’s up). And today, after the walk, I had a lovely beer (or three) called Fat Yak by Matilda Bay breweries. So still working my way through the local tipple, but still some way to go.

Pictures soon to follow, hope you’ve all had a great weekend.

Matt x

Well, it’s not quite like that, but it may be soon. I’ve been a little worried that the job market might have dried up for the next couple of months, what with Christmas and New Year, and it being the middle of summer here. That said, I’ve seen a lot of positions advertised, but I’m starting to sense a real reluctance among employers to give any consideration to people on the working holiday visa. That’s understandable, if it’s for long term or permanent positions, (you’re not allowed to stay in the same job or with the same employer for more than 6 months), but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be considered for contract positions.

Still, since I’ve been here I’ve managed to do some freelance work; a few hours for my uncle’s company, and I’m booked on Friday to do some private Mac training, but it’s not enough to keep me going indefinitely, and my savings will only go so far. But today things picked up. I got a call this morning asking me if I was interested in a service desk position. I’d be joining an existing team of 20 people, supporting over 22,000 users for a large financial organisation. It’s exactly matched to my skills and experience as well as some of the other jobs I’ve applied for, but it’s definitely a challenging and interesting position, and it will give me exposure to a broad range of technologies and systems that I’ve not come into contact with before, and I’m quite excited about it.

The call came from a recruitment consultant, and she set up a telephone interview. That went rather well, at least well enough that they’ve invited me in for a formal interview tomorrow. So, tomorrow morning I’m heading into the City to meet a friend from Stroud for breakfast (believe it or not!), and then I’m heading off to this interview for 1pm.

Wish me luck, and who knows, maybe tomorrow I’ll have some exciting news!

Matt x

This has been my second weekend here, although not having a job makes it not a whole lot different to any other day. Having said that, it’s been a really cool weekend and I’ve done some fun and interesting stuff. On Friday, I went with Amanda down to the Markets by Moonlight at The Rocks, where we met up with a couple of her friends. You can see some pictures I took there by clicking on the pic at the top of this post.  I must admit, it was still daylight when we were there, but pretty cool nonetheless. There was lots of ethnic food on sale, being cooked fresh in front of you, as well as stalls selling mostly ‘ethnic’ gifts, including one Irish stall selling, as well as ‘Celtic’ goods, various Guinness branded items. I was a little confused by the two people in this picture, who were walking their way through the crowds; the woman was dressed as a Flamenco dancer (albeit on stilts), while the man followed her around playing distinctly French sounding music on an accordion. Either the pair of them were somewhat culturally confused, or I’m just a philistine, ignorant of the famous French Flamenco.

Outside The Rocks Centre in the middle of the markets, a stage was set up where throughout the course of the Markets various performers will, um, perform. While we were there a guy named Eli Wolfe was playing (there are some pictures of him in the album), and while nobody else seemed particularly impressed by him, I thought he was really good. So having wondered through the market, we then walked through another little indoor arcade, where for some reason we discussed huntsman spiders, and my two Australian cousins’ complete inability to deal with one that was in our bathroom, while I happily casually trapped the thing under a plastic tub and dropped it off outside. Perhaps I’m blessed with the benefit of ignorance, or perhaps my profound hatred of insects truly does overcome any innate fear I’m supposed to instinctively have of spiders.

Anyway, back to the market. After that we wandered back to the central area with the stage to grab some food. After giving serious consideration to all the available options, Alice and David (Amanda’s friends) decided to go look for paella, while Amanda and I decided to try some Ethiopian food. If I’m being perfectly honest, my first reaction was that Ethiopian cuisine would involve sitting at a table and waiting for the UN to bring you a food package. I’m pleased to say I was proven spectacularly wrong. With a choice of rice or sourdough flatbread, the vegetarian option consisted of two kinds of lentils, salsa and mixed vegetables, wrapped into a tasty package. Amanda made the sensible choice and declined the additional chilli sauce, which I allowed them to generously heap on top of mine. The meal was delicious, but I could definitely feel flames coming from my mouth afterwards. This pretty much concluded the trip to the markets, as Amanda was heading on to a party after. So following the food we headed for home.

I managed to kill a few hours on Saturday by going shopping with Jeremy (uncle). This involved a trip to the supermarket, as you would expect, but also into a shop called Dan Murphy’s, a chain of what can only be described as alcohol supermarkets that seems to be popular here in Australia, and I can understand why. Aside from the rather impressive selection on offer (I feel I have understated that), the staff there are all cheerful, and extremely knowledgeable about what they’re selling. Rather than what you’d expect in the UK (”if we’ve got any, they’ll be…”), they are actually eager to help you, and all seem to be either wine or beer experts, or are very well trained. Something is definitely keeping them enthusiastic about what they’re doing, I wonder what it could be?

Saturday evening was also interesting. Went out to a Japanese restaurant called Sushi Samurai in Neutral Bay. Went by recommendations and ordered a vegetable tempura and noodles dish, and was advised, despite the ‘vegetarian’ assurances of the menu about this dish, to specify ‘no shrimp’ when ordering. This turned out to be a somewhat more complex task than you might expect; the Japanese waitress responded with “What’s shrimp?”. We thought it would be easier to just say no fish. So when the food was eventually brought out, there were crab sticks in it. Technically not fish, but still, not something I was prepared to eat. I took it back and explained that I’d specifically asked for no fish. They were apologetic and took it away from me. About a minute later, they brought it back with the crab sticks removed. This seemed to infuriate Amanda, who took it back over to them and demanded that they make me a fresh one. This approach seemed to work very well; they did in fact make me a fresh one, although the length of time taken for them to bring it out leads me to hope that they weren’t all taking turns to add ’special sauce’.

After the food we went to a pub called The Oaks, where we had a couple of drinks and played a couple of games of pool. I, as usual, sucked, but managed to get a couple of cheeky shots in and salvage some dignity. Didn’t stay too late, and headed back home in time for midnight.

That brings us to sunday. Not much interesting happened today; went to the Warringah mall, where I wandered around with Jeremy while Ariella went off and, I presume, shopped. Tomorrow brings another day of fresh job hunting. Plan is to slip into my suit and walk straight into the offices of some recruitment companies, and demand flat out that they give me some work. Failing that I may just politely introduce myself and explain my circumstances, and hope that there’s somebody there who’s got enough time to talk to me. Haven’t decided yet, but hopefully my next post will have some job related news!

Matt x

Australiana

Yesterday was pretty exciting. Met a guy for coffee and a chat about a job. He emailed today to say that it’s not going anywhere, but still, less than a week off the plane and already moving things along work wise seems pretty impressive to me. After that I walked round the city taking pictures, looking for all the world like a slack-jawed tourist on his first trip off the farm. You can see the album by clicking on the picture at the top if you want to take a look at some photos of Sydney, but don’t expect anything artistically creative.

Still, it was another lovely morning. The beach was far more packed out with people than it had been the previous day, with people partaking in activities ranging from splashing in the water to surfing, and rowing to kite-surfing (without the surf board – no, honestly!). The majority of people seemed to be crowded at the southern end of the beach, so a couple of strolls up and down from one end to the other offered quite a variation in scenery, both human and natural. One thing I did notice is that the seaweed here that washes up onto shore seems to have these kind of grape things growing on it. Maybe that’s common, but it’s not something I’ve ever noticed before. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me so couldn’t take any pictures, I will however ensure I bring it along next time I go.

After that we got back to the house, and that’s when the heatwave really kicked in. Over a hundred bush fires flared up around New South Wales, although they were too far west to be of any serious danger to us. Being just on Pittwater, it was quite a moist heat round here, and in fact you could visibly see a haze rising off the water, so nothing like the dry, instantly parching heat that slaps you in the face like a boiled sock when you get off a plane in Tel Aviv. Still, unlike in the UK, where if it’s too cold people complain, and if it’s too hot people complain, everyone here just went about their business. That left me with not much to do, so I wondered round the garden taking some pretty boring photos. You can see one at the top of this post, and clicking on it should take you to the album. But you’d probably have to be pretty damn bored to do that.

Anyway, today I’m back off into the city, to hand in a couple of forms to the bank, and this time for a bit of job hunting. I’ve applied for some online already, but thought I’d make myself known to some of the IT recruitment agencies around town. I’ll probably have another blog post ready this evening, maybe even with a couple of pictures of the city. No promises though!

Stay tuned!

Matt x

Woke up early this morning and went with Amanda and Ariella (cousin and aunt) to Palm Beach. While they went for a swim in the seawater pool, I went for a stroll up and down the beach. I must have looked a right douche. Jeans rolled up, sandles in hand, rucksack on back, wearing my Darth Vader “Your Empire Needs You” t-shirt, getting absolutely soaked by some of the less forgiving giant waves that were pounding the shore. Every aspect of me screamed “tourist”, or “pom”, or some kind of ridiculous combination of both.

I didn’t give a shit. It was fantastic.

The jet lag’s now pretty much gone, I managed to stay awake until after 10pm last night but couldn’t hold it together much more after that. Woke up today feeling refreshed and ready for new challenges, so snagged a lift into the city with my uncle. FYI, the following bit is a little boring, but will be useful on the off chance that anyone reading this ever decides to follow in my footsteps.

More to follow folks, thanks for reading!