For Theresa

The smell is so familiar, so comfortable. It is like a warm hug from your mother, like putting on an old pair of jeans. It is a distinctive smell only found in places like this, of pages steadily collecting dust and ink beginning to delete passages enclosed line by line. 

This is my favourite place to be. A place where the walls are barely visible, but that you know will be the darkest shade of wood, echoing the creaking floorboards that nestle underfoot. A bell tolls somewhere in the distance as the door stammers it's way open declaring the arrival of another kindred spirit. 

In a far off corner looms a proud, battered armchair, holes have formed in the arms where the material has grown weary with age and over use. The ornately carved wooden feet are slightly scuffed and sit upon a vast, faded threadbare rug. Waist high pillars of books teeter precariously either side of the regal throne, making it the centre of an already decaying empire. The entire corner of this room feels so homely it makes my heart throb and ache with a deep longing. 

The air is thick and heavy with age old volumes of preloved history, slicing through this is the soft smell of burning wood pumping out of the cast iron wood burner that's tucked away beyond the counter. 

From floor to ceiling the walls are lined with novels from every corner of the globe, every time period you could imagine. My hand idly finds a well thumbed copy of "The Grapes Of Wrath", it's front cover stripped from the main body. Below the greying title reads the delicately carved inscription, "May you find what you're looking for. H." I hold the bound, yellowing pages in my palms and try to imagine the life this book has lead. It's years in existence exceed mine by over a decade, it will have been loved by so many and travelled well, better than most people. There must be thousands of books here with hundreds more heartfelt messages adorning the pages. 

This is what I love. The feeling that I'm surrounding by a lifetime of old souls, a lifetime of work poured into every sentence and a lifetime of love as each sentence is read and analysed time and again. 

Time has frozen. The room has looked this way for decades and for all I know I have been standing here for as long. I know before I have picked it up which delicacy I shall call my own. The cover is a striking yellow, as glorious as the sun and filled with just as much happiness and promise as a summers day. I pluck the text from the top shelf and fan the pages in front of my nose. 

The smell is so familiar, so comfortable. Like a warm hug from my mother. 

For my Mum who made me love reading and appreciate every written word and who I can't wait to see again. Thank you. 

A Sibling, A Roadtrip and A Suzuki Alto

When I was in Europe family visits came almost monthly for me, the 4 hour journey was a pretty efficient way for them to get a nice little holiday under the clever guise of visiting their beloved child or sister. However the disgustingly long trip to Aus and the $$$ that it takes was apparently enough to dissuade any promised pilgrimages this time, so when my middle brother, Jake, told me that other plans had fallen through and he could probably consider visiting I took this as a definite.  

We had two weeks for Jake to see a reasonable portion of Australia, with the relatively small time frame we decided that renting a camper van and driving a chunk of it would make the most sense. Picking our home/transport was pretty easy, Jake had managed to find a decent sized hatchback that converts into a bed for cheap. We planned a route that would take us from Melbourne to Sydney via Canberra and as much coast as we could, all that was left was for him to fly for a day and meet me. 

True to form, I was of course late to collect Jake from Southern Cross Station but that's besides the point, with a couple of days to kill in Melbourne I figured this was as good a time as any to learn what the hell is going on in AFL. Along with my cousin and her very helpful Aussie mates we had the rules explained and reexplained over the course of a game, and I don't mean to brag, but I'd say I understand around 80% of what's happening. Having never been particularly into sports, I was delighted to find that I actually enjoyed watching this, there's tons of points, loads of players and an almost continuous string of pointless fights. Much more exciting than football I have to say.

Day 1
With Melbourne’s highlights ticked off we collected our chariot and begin the monster of a drive we'd planned. Our “decent sized hatchback” that we had picked must have gotten lost in translation somewhere along the way as what we came face to face with a Suzuki Alto the size of one of Jake’s shoes. Excellent. Yet on we soldiered, the first day's drive was planned to be the shortest of the trip to ease Jake into driving and also because we were dying to see the penguins on Phillip Island. The idea of penguins in Australia is still bizarre to me, but they're here, and in abundance. We watched with childlike enthusiasm as they poured in from the ocean and scuttled their way across the beach to their respective homes. Quality entertainment right there.
As it happens, we are definitely the two less practical of siblings, if our older brother had been present he would have suggested that the first time we assemble the car/bed it should probably be daylight, and he would definitely realise that we had no pillows or blankets… But we're not Nik, so it was by phone light that we attempted to construct our home and it was towels that constituted as bedding. 

Jake with 'Big Mikey'

Day 2
After a very restless night (every time I moved I hit the horn) we began our second leg to Lakes Entrance. With the mix-tapes in full flow the journey flew by, having only really travelled large distances via bus here you actually miss a lot. There's something truly fantastic about driving on a road for 3 hours and not seeing another soul that puts the whole mass of Australia into perspective a little bit.
Prior to Jake’s arrival I had spent multiple dollars on an app that I'd been told would make paying for a campsite a thing of the past. The first night we had weaned ourselves into camping by paying and having a surprisingly lovely shower and power sockets, however tonight we would go full Bear Grylls. If you've ever seen the film Wolf Creek you will understand why when we arrived at our “campsite” we were aptly terrified. A clearing in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere would be our home for the night, which would have possibly been alright if mine and Jake’s phones hadn't died and my iPad and only source of maps wasn't on 10% (Nik would have also brought a map). The night was spent with zero forms of entertainment and the constant fear of abduction. 

Day 3
Another broken/terrified sleep later we began the longest leg of our journey, a trip inland to the nation's capital, Canberra. I had been told/warned several hundred times to steer clear of Canberra, but I liked the idea of visiting the capital and I reasoned that they surely must have invested some time and money into this place. I was wrong. But we'll get into that later, the drive itself was by far the best of the trip, miles and miles of dead straight roads, beautiful weather and we even crossed three state lines that day. After treating ourselves to a night out in the capital (most places were shut and you could walk across the centre in around 20 minutes) we decided to hit up parliament the following day. When you think of the places in the world where all the major decisions are made, The Houses of Parliament, The White House, The Reichstag, you cannot imagine them not being coated in a dense layer of human pollution. This is not the case in Canberra. Including Jake and myself there was no more than 11 people clustered around the façade of the underwhelming structure, after nosing around inside for a little bit we concluded that every person who had warned me off Canberra was in fact correct and went on our way. 

Day 4
With the debacle that was Canberra behind us we headed back to the coast in search of Wollongong, this I'll be honest was a pretty uneventful leg of the journey and a pretty uneventful place. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the place, but in this case it is quite literally nothing to write home to my mother about. 

Day 5

Hiking around the Blue Mountains

Until now the car had done a reasonably sufficient job, speed was not its strong suit, but we weren't in a rush, the bed was cramped and a bit of a pain to assemble, but it's part of the adventure but hills were another matter entirely. Before heading into Sydney centre and whilst we still had the car we ventured from Wollongong to the Blue Mountains, a stunning and enormously vast mountain range tucked away just a few hours out of Sydney. The Alto was best suited to downhill slopes, we had even been to known to overtake people on these slopes, but this was a predominantly uphill journey, and by uphill I mean upmountain. I swear at some points we were going in reverse. Having been to the Blue Mountains previously I was pretty excited to show it off, it's difficult to explain just how enormous this place is and how tiny it can make you feel. Much to my pleasure Jake was as impressed as I'd have hoped. With great excitement we left the mountains, the hills now on our side, and made our way to a hostel with an actual bed and shower and plug sockets.

And that's where our journey in the Alto over, we spent four more days in Sydney doing all the things you're supposed to do in Sydney, returned the Alto, which we had actually grew quite attached to and flew back to Melbourne. Jake went back to England with a suitcase full of Tim Tams and Pizza Shapes and I've since returned to finish off my 88 days of farming. 

The Down Under of Down Under

After finishing cutting all the grapes that there apparently is, I found myself a little jobless and a little lost and following standard procedure for myself when I'm lost, I booked a flight to somewhere I know nothing about. Tasmania. With no knowledge of this odd, somewhat isolated, Australian state and a backpack full of unnecessarily summery clothes I headed to Hobart.
My first impression of Hobart was one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever witnessed. Stepping off the plane and onto the Tarmac it struck me that I have never found a runway beautiful before, the oppressive buildings and masses of concrete usually stand in the way of any perceived beauty yet somehow Hobart defied this. Overhead a smattering of feather light clouds dusted the sky, acting as a filter for the astoundingly pink setting sun and projecting the phenomenal colours across the entire horizon before dropping behind the surrounding mountains. As the rose tinted sky faded to black I was crossing the Tasman bridge, a structure spanning the river Derwent and one that allowed views to the fantastically illuminated city that lay before me in waiting. Butterfly's filled my stomach at the prospect of this new adventure.
Before I get properly started, here's a couple of facts about me, Grace Malbasa.
i. If someone tells me that I must/mustn't do something or need something I go especially out of my way to make them wrong (hence making me right).
ii. I don't have a drivers licence. I know. Shock horror. How have I survived as a human person for 22 years I hear you cry? Two ways, my legs and my father, but credit where it's due it's mainly been the latter.
When I announced my intentions of exploring Tassie the first reaction of all people, friends and strangers alike, was that I simply must have a car. “Hah” I would cry in response, “Do you not know who I am? I am the great explorer Miss G Malbasa who has successfully and single handedly traversed 10 countries by the age of 22 without your precious drivers licence!”
Turns out you do actually need a car here. Damn it.
Hobart itself is really very lovely, being surrounded by water and mountains makes the whole place feel very quaint and somewhat undiscovered despite the numerous Cotton On stores and enormous Discount Chemist Warehouse outlets that line the streets. These generally quite ugly features are successfully overshadowed by the picturesque harbour and tiny beaches dotted along the coast line. They also have a relatively broad public transport system, but most places are walkable regardless. On my first full day I decided to catch the first bus that came along with a destination that sounded appealing -‘Sandy Bay’- how adorable. Along with the car advise, people had bombarded me with information about hiking and how it's a must do in Tasmania and it is here that I found myself accidentally scaling a small mountain and completing my first of several Tassie hikes.
 Hiking is a reasonably new concept to me, born around the time I entered this country. Back in England I would take the dog for a walk, and a country jaunt in general is a common enough past time, but turning walking into some sort of sport is beyond me. Transforming a relaxing stroll into a competitive, blood pumping, heart pounding exercise seems absurd. However I have now done my fair share of hiking and I can say with some confidence “Meh”. You wake up feeling sore but without quite managing to have burned off that muffin you ate for lunch, either go for a run or have a little sleepy, not this weird hybrid.
But I digress. Hobart, it's delightful and beautiful and I really couldn't recommend it enough, Launceston however is another matter entirely. Prior to getting on the bus from Hobart to Launceston the bus driver enquirer as to why I was making this journey.
 “To see Tasmania of course!”
“Well if you wanna see Tassie don't bother going there, it's a hole in the ground in an island where a bunch of odd bods live.”
Excellent. On we go though, I'm sure it's delightful and this is just some age old town rivalry. In the cold and drizzle we pulled into Launceston and I could feel my excitement beginning to dissolve into the puddles that now surrounded me like some pathetically sad Berocca. The days that followed my arrival in Launceston reminded me of the one thing I really don't miss about Britain, the rain. The kind that freezes you to the bone, that makes your clothes heavy and misshapen and that makes you want to do nothing but stay indoors and eat litres of soup. Thankfully after two days of driving rain and copious amounts of Netflix I woke up on Monday to glorious sunshine and so I headed off to Cataract Gorge to of course hike. I can't deny it was beautiful, crystal clear waters, fantastic views and not an overly taxing walk, however this doesn't make up for the fact that Launceston is in fact a hole in the ground. Shame.
Very happily I headed back to Hobart for one last day with the mild intention of climbing Mount Wellington, I say mild as a google search had informed me that it would in fact require some effort of which I wasn't sure I was overly keen for. Wednesday morning came and I had resigned myself to the idea of catching the shuttle bus to the summit of said mountain, however much to my annoyance the bus was full which meant I would in fact be climbing.
 The hike itself is supposed to be mildly difficult, however I immediately took a wrong turn and little did I know began the “expert” level trail. Brilliant. It is honestly a miracle that I didn't die on that mountain, when I discovered I was on the far more difficult path I wasn't past the point of no return, but as I mentioned before, if the elders of hiking want to tell me I won't be able to do this then they can do one. They probably had a point though, although I finished the hike I managed to cross several different trails in the process and ended up doubling the time it should have taken. But that's besides the point, I finished it and the feeling of looking out over all of Hobart knowing that I had achieved this was really phenomenal.
During my nine days in Tasmania I have successfully climbed two mountains and hiked what feels like the length of Finland and I'm certain that it won't be long before I return, next time either with a drivers license or my father.

Those Times I Tired to Farm...

I once cried for at least 40 minutes because I thought a fly had gotten trapped in my ear and I would die whilst it laid eggs in my brain and I became nothing more than a husk of my former self. Turns out it was just the wind and there was in fact nothing in my ear. I have been known, on occasion, to wash my hair as frequently as three times a day and as a child my brothers would mock my, often hysterical, reactions to moths getting too close to my face. Even as recently as living in Byron I left the cockroach maintenance solely in the hands of my housemate.
What I'm getting at, is that “outdoorsy” is not a word that I have ever been described as. I am not a wimp however, if a job needs doing, I'll do it. And it is with this mentality that I left Byron to start my farming adventure. For those of you who don't know, in order to secure a second year visa in Australia you must complete 88 days of “regional work”, which is more often than not on a farm. It's a very clever way to get the masses of agricultural land that Australia hosts farmed, without having to make residents complete the hours of essentially slave labour. Good move Straya.
After a brief stop in Sydney (Opera house. Bridge. Blue mountains. Done.) I headed to Adelaide with the prospect of work. After having spoken to the farmer on several occasions, it was agreed he would collect me from Adelaide airport where I would travel south to the wine regions and start harvesting grapes the following day. As my plane landed into South Australia I was informed by the captain that they were currently experiencing a heat wave and it was 45 degrees at present. I knew that this was hot, I understood that, but hearing the large number and actually being immersed in it are two very different things. I had until then assumed that everything past 37 degrees was the same, that your body reaches a point where it just says “bloody hell it’s hot” and you can't comprehend anything higher. I was wrong. It's hard to describe heat, but the most notable thing for me was breathing, as soon as I disembarked the plane my nostrils began to burn with every breath and my mouth was immediately dry. The lack of wind meant that you just inhale, stale hot air that heats your insides as well as burning your skin and sucks your body clean of any moisture. But I was still positive. I had a job and I would get my farm sorted and I could just chill out in Australia for a whole extra year if I wanted. I reclaimed my trusty backpack from the luggage carousel and phoned my farmer, no answer. Several unanswered phone calls, text messages, emails and hours later I began to realise that Derek wasn't going to appear and booked myself into the first hostel I could find. Bollocks. All together I ended up spending a week in Adelaide, which was actually quite delightful in a strange small town sort of way.
The good thing about the masses of land in Australia means that it's reasonably easy to find alternative farms to work on, and with gumtree posting new listings every ten minutes, I found myself heading across state lines once again, this time to Victoria. Putting my Adelaide experience down as a “learning curve” I was full of hope for my new job harvesting tomatoes in a small town called Rochester. A quick google revealed it to be a picturesque village from a time forgotten, where all the houses were ordained with porches and sprawling front lawns and you almost expected everyone speak with a southern drawl and wear bonnets. This time I was in fact collected from the train station by my new host as promised, so I got further than Adelaide at least, and this was a win for me. However it would be here that the winning would dwindle to an untimely halt once again. Now I'm not going to go into too much detail because I like to think of myself of having a reasonably sunny disposition and this just makes me sad and I don't want to be sad. If I could give only one piece of advise to anyone thinking of doing their farm work it would be to make sure you are paid per hour, rather than per bucket/bin/bag. To surmise my week of tomato farming into a couple of lines, I kneeled in the dirt for 9 hours a day filling a bottomless pit of a bucket with cherry tomatoes for $1.50 per bucket. For my week of back snapping physical labour under the harsh sun, I made a grand total of $95. That's about £50 for anyone back home, it's also so crappy that I quit immediately. Two farms down and a total of 5 days work completed. Only 83 left.
All is not lost however! I am writing this from the comfort of a lovely double bed (a luxury unknown to travellers) in a town west of Melbourne having completed my first week harvesting grapes for a lovely company which pays me per hour and pays taxes and makes me aware of health and safety and all other terribly boring but also fabulously refreshing and comforting protocols. I don't want to speak to soon, but they do say that the third times the charm.

Where I Lie Now.

Hello all, it's been a while, and for that I am sorry. It won't happen again… maybe. 

I'd love to tell you that I haven't been writing because I've been crazy busy doing constantly awe inspiring things, but that would be a lie. I haven't been writing because I thought I had nothing to write about, my life is pretty standard in terms of Byroners (Byronees? Byronians?) and I had forgotten that just because something is routine, it doesn't mean it isn't pretty spectacular. For me it took getting out of Byron for a couple of days over Christmas and explaining to other people what it is exactly I do with my days to appreciate its small beauty. Whilst I attempted to rush through the explaining of things as quickly as possible, fearing they would think me terribly mundane, I was bombarded with questions and grins and remarks about how lucky I am. 

And I am. 

It is only now that I find my time in the Bay nearing an end, can I fully appreciate just how special my own personal mundane is. The next series of posts are going to b solely dedicated to some of my favourite memories in this beautiful place, but for now we'll start with the beginning. 

The beginning. 

If we were to go back just a few short months, we'd see me living in the staff room of Aquarius Backpackers with 11 other fantastically insane work for accommodationers. 12 people in this tiny room was a squeeze, and it was gross, and you lost everything you owned, and there was a small maggot infestation and it was just the purest example of friendship. Being thrown into living and working and socialising with a group of people whom you've never met is beyond daunting, but it also creates some of the tightest social links I've ever known. In one short week I'd seen majority of them naked, swapped clothes with most of them and fallen in love with all of them. I mean don't get me wrong, they're all absolute freaks and misfits and if it were in any other situation non of us would have befriended one and other, but somehow that made it work all the more. 

For two months I lived in the squalid pockets of these people, and then one day Aquarius offered to pay me in money rather than room, and so I packed up my few remaining clothes and moved to the locally known “happy houses” with my fabulous Canadian friend, Ariya. Within three weeks there were 10 former AQ staff and guests living within three houses of each other. For me, I have what I deem to be the perfect set up, still working at AQ means I get to visit the one or two last remaining ones of our bunch who are still living there, but having my own studio means I no longer get woken up at 4am a host of hammered people, and I no longer find jars of pickled herring in the toilet. Bloody Swedes. 

A general day of cleaning at Aquarius sees me out of the house from 9.15am until around 2pm, and this is not English 2pm, it's Australian. That means it's still over 30 degrees and the beach is calling. I don't think I can stress just how close work and the beach are, so I've included a map for reference. Yeah. Be jealous. After lying down for several hours on a pristine beach, with the mountains to the left and the lighthouse to the left, I'll make the pilgrimage home, with my bike, Carol, it takes me just six minutes to get home. Evenings vary from crazy nights out to cuddle puddles and Disney films and to be honest, it's pretty beautiful what ever we choose. 

Where I lie now. 

Currently I am lying in my garden, the late afternoon sun is fighting through the large canopy of trees that protect me from the harsh rays, creating a kaleidoscope of  colours and patterns on the rug beneath me. I am also warmed to my core from the low beams, penetrating through my thin layer of skin and spreading it's heat and joy through my veins. A small breeze is quaffing my hair slightly and creating a peaceful rustling in the fallen, crisp leaves that reminds me of the English countryside thousands of miles away. The smell of our, now weekly, family BBQ tinges the air with the sweet scent of onions and evokes a sense of excitement at the prospect of a beautiful, long summer evening in this, my perfect home, stretching out in front of me.

This is where I lie now. And though it may be unremarkable, it is real, and it is mine and I could not be more contented.