With this page I'd like
to help everybody, who like to do the Working Holiday Visa thing in Australia
. It should give you a real picture of the situation, where to find work and
other things by this page. I'd like to inform you as well as possible before
you go, about all the traps and hot tips. Working Holiday wasn't easy and the
stress was more on working than on holiday. Take a pen and a peace of paper
and you might save a lot of time for preparation.
Photo album
Have a look at my photo album
Arriving in Sydney.
I landed in Sydney on the 15th of September 2005. I was very
tired after a 20 hour flight with Thai Air from Frankfurt via Bangkok. I enjoyed
the flight and Thai Air spoiled us non-stop with a very good service. However,
I had a jet lag for a few days due to the fact that Sydney in New
South Wales is 8 hours
in front of us. You get always a jet lack if you fly East, you don't get a jet
lag if you fly West. On my return flight, I didn't have the same problem. I
slept at day time instead of sleeping during the night time. Then I opened my
eyes for Sydney, had a look
around visiting the Harbour bridge, the Opera House and all 
the other
places worth seeing in Sydney, went for a
stroll through the city centre, for some shopping and took the ferry to the
favourite and crowded Bondi Beach. Then I
realised that Australians listen to the same music, watch the same movies in
the cinemas, go out on the evenings as we do. And I felt like: " That is
the same like Europe! What am I
doing here? There is not much to see for an expensive flight down under and
just a Working Holiday Visa in my pocket ". And they get the new movies
and the music a few month later than we do. It is really the same and Sydney is very
expensive and busy, too.
However, arrived in Australia
there was no way back. I had to fulfil my plan to spend a year in Australia
with the Working Holiday Visa. And from the first moment it was like Murphey's
law: "Everything which can go wrong will go wrong!". In Germany I
spent weeks to get as much information about Australia
as possible – for example about jobs, accommodation, insurance, places to go -
but it turned out to be a waste of time. After my arrival at the Airport in Sydney at 9:00 PM on the 15th of September - Sydney time - I
noticed that all the public transport was closed - there wasn't even a train to
the city centre – I had to take a taxi to my youth hostel. Luckily I met some
other young Germans and we could share a taxi to the centre. Before I left Germany I
was looking for bargains on the internet to make a good deal for cheep
accommodation in Sydney for a couple of nights. That was the way I found the City Central
Backpacker in George Street. They promised free breakfast and airport pick up, clean rooms.
After my arrival in the hostel it was already after 10:00 PM and the
reception was closed. Luckily one of the guests opened the door for me and I
could sleep on the couch on the third floor. The place was absolutely not clean
and only the free internet access did answer the description. In the morning I
ended up in an argument with the receptionist maybe because I was already
complaining. She tried to charge me for the night on the couch but I refused to
pay for it. Then she asked me to leave the building and I said, I am not
leaving before I've got my deposit back I paid per credit card on the internet.
After that she asked the security guy make me leave the building. He didn't
touched me but he called the police. The police arrived and explained the
situation to me. For the law in Australia
I have to pay for the night even if I just slept on the couch. The fact that I
paid for the first night already on the internet means just I have to contact
the booking agency on the internet to get my money back of them. In respect of
the police I paid the night and left the building. But I still felt angry
because they had cheated me. On the end it really doesn't worth it to save a
couple of dollars for your first few nights somewhere in Australia if you book
online, because If you can't see the place you don't really know If it is a
good value for money or not. I went up the street to one of the most favourite
hostels in Australia the Wake Up, which is just a few meters away. The Wake Up is a bit
expensive but it offers good accommodation and is very clean.
The next problem I had
was to get a Vodafone Sim Card for my mobile phone. I ordered on of this on the
internet and Vodafone promised on the internet that it will be on my
accommodation before I arrive in Sydney. But there wasn't a Sim Card in the City Central Backpackers. To
have a 
mobile phone in Australia
is very important. Due to the fact that you are travelling and you don't stay
at one place longer than three months, employers should be able to contact you
wherever you are – always leave an email address and a mobile phone number when
dropping of your resume. However I had a go to the next Vodafone store and buy
another one. They told me that – because my mobile phone was a Vodafone from England -
I need a code to free the phone for a new Sim Card, which I got done at a
mobile phone repair service in Sydney for $ 40. In the meantime I spent the money for two Sim Cards plus
mobile phone repair service bill to keep an old Siemens C45 running. For that
money you get a starter pack from Vodafone on every corner in Australia.
Besides it had a German charger plug.
At some point at the year I decided to change from Vodafone to
Telstra (Australian public phone company like Telekom in Germany
and British Telecom in England) because I thought it will be cheaper but it wasn't this two
companies charge the same for pay as you go phones.
Adapter for
Plugs, clothing and shopping.
Adapter for the socked
in Australia is another subject. I bought an expensive international adapter for
the sockets in Australia in Germany and after my arrival in Sydney I realised
that I get these things cheaper everywhere in Australia.
It's the same thing with
clothing, buying clothing in Australia
is much cheaper than England or Germany. I don't recommend to buy or bring very expensive stuff with you
anyway, if you about to make the Working Holiday thing and to live your life as
a backpacker for a year because it just gets stolen or disappears somehow. Even
hiking gear and such things are much cheaper in Australia.
But I would be careful with special gear for example for climbing or other
extreme sport because it could be import from Europe.
Food is also much
cheaper in the most towns of Australia
– Sydney and Canberra and the whole east cost are
the more expensive part.
The same thing happened
with my bank account. I found it helpful to open a saving bank account with the
Citibank that made it possible to open a bank account online before arriving in
Australia. In Sydney I visited a branch and asked them to activate my account for me.
But the Citibank sent me to an agency in the suburbs. And I decided not to
sacrifice the time and went into the next Westpac Bank to open my bank account
there, which wasn't a problem at all. You just should do it in your first eight
weeks in Australia – all you need is your passport and visa sticker. The thing I
missed to do was to open a bank account with the "Deutsche Bank"
because they are a partner of the Westpac Bank and you can withdraw money on
each ATM in Australia without paying a transaction fee with your German EC card. You can
use your EC card in Australia on each ATM ( Bankautomat) without problems, but the banks
recommend to use your credit card as often us possible.
The next important thing
was the tax file number. Without a tax file number you are not allowed to work
in Australia, which means that nobody can employ you as long as you don't
provide them with it. Because you can't apply for a tax file number before you
enter Australia, you should do it on the first few days after your arrival. You can
apply for it online but if you aren't in Australia
yet, you will be asked to enter the system again later. The best way is just to
go to the next best tax office and ask them for it. It doesn't have to be in Sydney it can be
anywhere else.
Last but not least make
sure you know your visa number. If you enter Australia
through Sydney you'll have your Working Holiday Visa Sticker in your passport and
you are able to apply for it online at www.ato.com.au. If you enter Australia
through other towns like Perth or Adelaide you might have to go to the immigration authority to get your Working
Holiday Sticker first before you can apply for a Tax File Number. The procedure
of the Tax File Number needs about 3 weeks.
Concession Cards.
I had a ISIC Concession
Card which helped me to get about 10 per cent off at long-distance bus tickets.
International Student Cards aren't valued on train and bus tickets in the towns
because the local governments in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth just accept student cards of the local students at the Universities
and Collages. To have a Concession card isn't necessary and you don't save much
more than others. In the youth hostels they usually give you one or two dollars
off per night if you have one. Can be a bit if you stay longer or not worth
mention if you stay just a night. But you get free entrance in the most museums
with an International Student Card. The International Student Card was even
accepted when expired because nobody really look at the date. And the ISIC Card
includes a very convenient International Phone Card for oversee phone calls. If
I travelled to a Australia again, I would purchase one again. Finally you can be sure that you
get the eight Euros you pay for the Concession Card, back by free entrance of
museums.
I don't know about other
concession cards like YHA but all promise more than they keep and actually just
want you to come back to the same organisation again. YHA hostels are anyway
not the best deal. They are very expensive considering the service you get.
There are others, independent youth hostels, which are better.
After 10 days of Sydney I made up my
mind that I didn't really like to stay in Sydney and l moved
on. I bought a bus ticket to Canberra the capital of Australia.
Sydney is expensive,I find the people very busy and unfriendly and I
didn't like to stay at the place where I dropped of first.
But Sydney has a few good feature. The jobs are better paid and you might get
a job quicker than somewhere else. It is just, for example, a thing like London in England –
people move to the metropolis because all the businesses move to London and
therefore there are the better jobs obviously. Or the same like South Germany – people go where
the business goes. And young people like to live where they can go out in the
evening and have some fun.
However the bus ticket
cost me just $ 55 with my ISIC (International Student Card). Bus and Train
tickets are much cheaper than in Europe if you reckon the giant distances between the towns. You can go with
one of the discount inland flights of airlines like: Jetstar, Quantas and
Virgin Blue. Distance in Australia
in general doesn't mean as much as in Europe. Travelling from Sydney to Canberra looks on the map that it is just a two hour drive, but the truth is
Canberra is about seven hundred k's away. Australians are much more willing
to drive long distances to visit friends, than middle Europeans would do. For
example it is quite usual that somebody living in Alice Springs visits friends in
Adelaide or Sydney.
Canberra is a wonderful small town. I went through the street of Canberra and was
looking for my accommodation with my big and heavy rucksack on my shoulder and
a street map in my hands. People are extremely friendly and they remind me of
the manner of an English gentleman. I walked down the shopping street and with
my map in the hand and two people stopped with their bicycles to help me to
find my way – the nice thing was, I even didn't ask them. I recommend to visit
the old and the new parliament, the Museum of Australia and don't forget to
visit the Aboriginal Embassy in front of the old parliament, which consist
actually of a few tents – they have been camping there since the 70's and have
never left the place. The new parliament is situated under the earth with a big
silver metal tower on top of it. They build the parliament for the future and
has more seats for members of parliament than actually necessary. The reason is
that they expect the population of Australia
explode in the next decades. The old parliament can tell you a lot about
Australian politics, the National Museum of Australia tells you a lot about the indigenous people of Australia
. But most Backpacker are little impressed by the capital because it is a very
small town, still expensive and there is very little to do if you don't like to
study politics or art. I loved it and I remember all this big yellow white
parrots in the streets. I spent a few night in an old pub, which is actually
the traditional way of staying for the Australians. Canberra has
another feature, there are not many backpackers from oversee, who like to stay
for longer because it is to small and quirt.
However, after a couple of
days I took another bus down to Melbourne. It was colder in Melbourne than it was in Germany
immediately before I left the country. And it was raining all the time. It is
really strange, you can leave the house while the sun is shining,it makes you
feel like going to the beach and lying in the sun, but on the way to the beach
it starts raining cats and dogs, you turn at the next stop of the tram and on
the way back the sun is shining again with a magnificent blue sky. Melbourne has a
strange weather like this all year round. The reason why Melbourne has a
weather like in Scotland are the mountains around Melbourne.
The job situation in Melbourne was very
good in Melbourne end of September because all the backpackers moved North in May,
and haven't come back yet, because it was cold down in the Victoria. Melbourne is much
cheaper than Sydney. I booked my accommodation in the All Nations Backpacker and just
paid 90 $ a week for it including breakfast. The good thing about the All
Nations Backpacker was you could work for accommodation and they had a jobs
centre to assist us with finding work. I didn't need a week to find some work
cash in hand in private gardens in Melbourne. It was
nice work mostly for ten dollars an hour and some lunch. This way you get in
touch with the locals too. It was lady's night in the Backpackers bar every
Friday evening and I hooked on with a nice English girl from Manchester and I
spent in the next couple of weeks most of the time with her.
After I got my Tax File
Number ,I started work in a factory for plastic bins. Melbourne has
introduced a new recycling system and all the residents got new bins with
different functions. Melbourne is a nice town with good places for going out, too . If you get to
Melbourne visit St. Kilda Beach at the weekend and visit the bars and pubs,or
go shopping in Victoria Market where you can buy delicacies and food from
everywhere around the world. Spend an evening in the casino, which is the
casino with the most gambling tables in the world. Australians are the most
fervent gamblers in the world, too. The public transport is very good because Melbourne has quiet
good tram system and you don't pay more than twenty five dollars for a week
ticket. I remember, we tried to save as much money as possible and I went each
evening with my work mates to a Hare Krishna Temple at St.
Kilda Beach.
At the End of November,
I decided that it is about time to leave Melbourne. For
eight weeks I worked hard in the Factory, but didn't save more than one and a
half thousand dollars. We got quiet fair wages, and the cost of living in Melbourne are low,
in comparison with some 
middle European cities. The
problem is just that you spent about $ 200 a week for food, accommodation and
transport. If you have a simple job like working in a factory, and work 40
hours a week, you'll earn 500 dollars but you properly don't save more than $
300 a week which is quite a bit. And you don't like to sit in the youth hostel
like a monk in the evening, do you? You like to go out and have fun! But fun
costs money! You can work more than 40 hours a week if your work place has
enough work. And Australia luckily doesn't have tough work overtime regulations like for
example Germany. In some businesses Australians even work sixty hours a week. At
some point I realised that the Working Holiday Visa has its disadvantages.
Working Holiday Visa sounds like you can go to Australia
and work your way throughout the country without spending any savings from
home. And that doesn't really work out. Most of us, the most backpackers, are
spend heaps of dollars in Australia.
We do low paid jobs and there is a tourist trap on every corner, where they try
to get your money . In return service you mostly just get a dodgy tour
somewhere. I believe Backpackers are the tourist, who leave more money in Australia
than any other tourists. If I travelled Australia again, I would save as much
money as I can in Germany, work till the last minute and make a short but very
intensive holiday for a couple of months. On the end you may get the same out
of it in a shorter time with a Tourist Visa, rather than a Working Holiday
Visa.
There are well paid jobs
for example in the IT industrial sector, but the problem is that these
Companies are not willing to employ you because you aren't allowed to work with
one company longer than three months due to your visa. These companies need to
train you for at least four weeks and you don't stay longer than three months -
they won't employ you.
Craftsman are needed but without a Business Number. You won't find a
job as a tool maker, carpenter or chef somewhere. May you should try to apply
online for a business number before you go to Australia.
Looking for work can be
difficult, too. There isn't a guarantee that you can find any work, many young
backpackers have really big problems to find jobs because the don't have any
work experience,or they can't speak English pretty well enough, or some places
are too crowded at certain times of the year. Melbourne in
September was one of the places, where it was easy to find work, because it was
winter and all the Backpackers where in the north. In November the summer comes
back and all the people come back – and finding a job gets harder.
The
"Centrelink" ( the Australian unemployment job centre ) is not
allowed to help us because of our Working Holiday Visa Number. The computers in
the Centrelink job offices are very convenient but you can't apply for the jobs
because the officials aren't allowed to register you as a job seeker. But pick
up a fee "Harvest guide" for very useful information about the fruit
picking seasons in the different regions in Australia.
http://www.centrelink.gov.au
Fruit picking isn't so bad as most people think. I heard from people
who made two thousand dollars a fortnight. And that is not an exception. They
work Monday till Sunday nonstop for two weeks - certainly very hard and make
good money. All you have to do is to be on the right time at the right place.
Farmers are very happy if they can pick as much fruit as possible in a short
time in picking season. If the fruit stays to long in the trees and it rains,
the fruits burst and you can't sell them any more. Some fruits are very well
paid like for instance Mango in Darwin - starts end of September. other fruits aren't good paid like
Melons near Broom – starts in May. Where ever you go fruit picking, try to find
out how much they pay before you go there, because you can end up with picking
for two dollars an hour. - bad luck.
You can sign up with a
few private job agencies – there is no restriction just to sign up with one-
but they just find work for you if there is any work available, too. Another
kind of agencies are the backpacker job agencies. I find the backpacker job
agencies quite good. You pay between 10 and 50 dollars to sign up with them and
they try to find work for you – sometimes you get your money back if they
aren't successful. They just find for you simple work, like in a factory and so
on, but at least you will have a job, which saves you from losing a lot of
money with doing nothing.
Another way to find a job
is reading the newspaper once a week and keep your eyes on shop windows and
black boards in supermarkets.
Some travellers come
with an organisation to Australia. This organisation sells you a packet, including flights and tours.
They promise you to help you with finding work but they aren't good 
value for money. And you
will get very angry if you find out, after one year, that the organisation
helped you only very little. They can't guarantee you a job, either . And fruit
picking is a job you can find easily yourself. You just need a car to get to
the picking places. Australia is full of backpackers, be prepared there are millions of young
people travelling around,which means it's worth investing in the business for a
lot of tourist companies.
If you don't find any
work at all you can go on one of the thousands of WOOFing Farms ( www.wwoof.com.au ). The organic farms
through Australia. You don't get paid for your work but you get free accommodation
and food. You have plenty of time to make new friends, learn English and you
will have a lot of fun. No worries! Woofing farms are not allowed to use
artificial fertiliser or spray.
Woofing is great fun !
My time in Melbourne was over. I bought a ticket with the Tasmanian Ferry and went to
Devenport on top of Tasmania. There isn't much to do in Devenport. It is a typical small town,
there isn't any action for young people. All the time I changed location, the
first thing I did was looking for work. There wasn't any work in Davenport and the
picking season for cherries was already over. I had a look around, asked in the
agencies but there was absolutely nothing in the town. After a couple of days
in Devenport, and because I couldn't find any work, I decided to go on a
Woofing farm in Sheffield, which is 15 minutes with the bus south from Devenport.
I had to spend a couple
of weeks there because I was waiting for a Japanese friend from Melbourne, who was
still working in a restaurant. We decided to make the Overland Track together,
which goes from the Creedal Mountains to Lake St. Clare. The Overland Track is eighty five k's long and
there are just huts and no accommodation where you can stay for the night. It
is not the longest hiking track in Tasmania, but the
most popular one.
In the meantime half of
the money I earned in Melbourne was gone. If you don't work for just a few weeks, money goes so
fast – unbelievable!
The farmer in Sheffield had walnut trees, garlic, cows and sheep. He kept me and his
daughter busy with collecting walnuts from wild trees for days. We peeled
thousands of walnuts to produce an Irish speciality - pickled walnuts ( tastes
like "Lebkuchen"). The farms in Australia
are much bigger than the farms in Europe. The farmer had big plantations with walnut trees but most of them
weren't ready yet. He has to wait another six or seven years but then he will
be a rich man. Europe demands thousands of tons of walnuts each year on Christmas time,
the farmer explained to me. I really admire the patience of this people. You
can't just sit there and wait until your trees are ready, you have to irrigate
and look after them every day.
Shima and Guy, another
friend from New Zealand arrived and we spent the next six days in the mountains. As we were
always short of money we just bought a 50 $ tent, two slipping bags with 15 $
each and some cheap hiking shoes. And we organised long warm underwear, winter
clothing, and rain coats because it can get suddenly very cold in the mountains
and you can die, even in the summer. It was creasy to do the Overland Track
with such a bad preparation, but it was great fun. Wallabies welcomed us each
evening in front of the huts and you could see a lot of other animals like
snakes, hedgehogs, parrots and the unique Tasmanian Devil. Moreover, you get a
magnificent few over the mountains and lakes.
After our return I went
back to the farm in Sheffield. I helped the farmer out with his garlic harvest. It wasn't easy to
find work in Tasmania but the farmer did know other farmers in Tasmania and
called a friend in Richmond. They were in the middle of a big apricots harvest. Shima and me
drove down to Richmond to help. I made the same money in two weeks which I made in eight
in Melbourne. The reason was that you save money for accommodation because you
stay in a tent in the caravan park and you have to cook together because there
are no fast food restaurants. After a few days in Hobart, took a
plane with Jetstar back to Melbourne and bought a train ticket for backpackers for the Indian Pacific,
value of half a year for the trip down to Perth.
If you reckon the long
distances in Australia, public transport is much cheaper in Australia
than in Europe. Train tickets for instance are cheap, if you travel with the red
kangaroo class. Doesn't matter if you travel with the Guin from Adelaide to Darwin, with the
Indian Pacific from Adelaide to Perth or with the Overland from Sydney to Adelaide, the trains are identical by built. But sitting 
and sleeping in a train seat can be very tiring. Golden kangaroo
carriages are more comfortable with a sleeping car and your own cabin but
expensive. You should drive once while your stay in Australia
with the Indian Pacific because it is a tourist attraction itself. And the
track from Adelaide to Perth is the longest stretched railway track in the world. Australia
doesn't have a railway network like Europe , which means you can't go everywhere with the train. You should
take enough food with you, because the dining carriage isn't very good and
over-priced.
You can see much more
with a bus ticket of Grayhound bus network. They are selling km passports. You
pay for a certain amount of km in advanced and you can book your bus seats for
every place you like. Australia is a big country and it is nearly impossible to see everything in a
year. Km passports are more expensive than get around with the train.
Another very good
possibility to get around in Australia
is to fly. There are cheap domestic flights of the airlines Virgin Blue ( www.virgenblue.com.au ) , Jetstar ( www.jetstar.com.au ) and Quantas ( www.quantas.com.au ). Check out their
internet pages for more information. Virgin Blue and Jetstar are flight
companies like Easyjet and Germanwings in Europe.
One thing I missed when I visited Australia:
I didn't see enough of the Outback. The real Australia
is not in the towns it is out there. But if you like to see all these things
you have to buy a car. Most backpackers buy a car in Sydney and after
one year they try to sell their car in Perth. Due to the
fact the majority of the travellers is doing it, the cars in Sydney are
overpriced and the cars in Perth are very cheap. It is recommended to do it the other way round. Buy
a car in Perth sell it in Sydney. Always take enough water with you if you go in the Outback . Australia
is the driest continent in the world and you wouldn't be the first tourist, who
underestimates the power of the desert. Now and then you will find a newspaper
clipping about tourists from overseas, who died of thirst.
You can rent a car, too.
But you should double check, weather the car is in good conditions. If you like
to rent a car for long-term purposes you properly get a very good deal
somewhere. But I remember some friends, they rent a car of the Wicked car
rental services and the car burned down on the street in the middle of nowhere
in Western Australia. The care had a cable burn and went up in flames within minutes.
Everything was destroyed including their luggage. They paid an expensive
insurance, too. After their return in Perth they asked
Wicked if the insurance covers the damage. But the answer was that the
insurance just covers the damage of the car but not their personal properties.
Pardon ? ! The reason of the cable burn was a defective cable and not the fault
of the driver.
I left Melbourne with the train and stayed a few days in Adelaide. Adelaide is the
place in Australia where most people with Germans ancestors live and is one of the
best win growing areas in Australia.
The villages around Adelaide have German names and I was surprised, as friend told me he met a
German mayor ( Bürgermeister ). Then I left Adelaide to Perth.
When you leave Adelaide with the
Indian Pacific to Perth you'll see just farm land for the first three or four hours. But
then the landscape suddenly turns into a flat desert with nothing but a dry
bush land with very little trees and even they will disappear after a while.
They play typical Australian music in the trains and you properly like to go
for a coffee in the dining carriage, read the newspaper, have a chat with the
other travellers or play cards. You won't be bored because there are so many
people, who like to meet new people when travelling. If you are lucky you may
see one of the big two meter kangaroos in the desert. Keep your eyes open! You
can have a look around in Kalgoorlie and Cork, the only two stops on the way. Kalgoorlie is the
biggest gold mine in the world and the majority of the residents are gold
miners. There isn't a women who lives there. We arrived twenty four hours later
in Perth.
In the inner city of Perth, there is backpacker hostel after backpacker hostel and each bar
has two or tree backpacker nights per week attract costumers and encourage you
to drink. Sometimes it was good because you get something for free or very
cheap. But the parties in Northbridge in Perth aren't of
very high cultural standard – just about drinking and having fun. You can stay
back home and you get the same everywhere - too many tourists
In Perth I ran out of
money I always run out of money, when I changed location. I was starting
looking for work from the first day I arrived but had no luck yet. I still had
an address in my pocket of an event company, which builds up tents for events
and staging. A backpacker from England
gave it to me because he worked for this Company a few month. I called them and
they asked me to turn up at the work place on the next morning and was
employed. We took down a two storey tent on the Perth cricked
ground (WACA). I liked the work. It was physically hard but I had fun pulling
ropes and build up tents. Unfortunately the company just had three or four days
work for us and it was about time to go back in my own profession – what I am
doing normally in Germany. I went to a few nursing agencies and ask for work. But they just
can employ me as a nurse, if I am registered with the Western Australian
Nursing Board and that is not so easy than it locks like because you need to
translate a couple of things, may have to go to an English test and some other
things, too. The Australian authorities are very strict, you can't be
registered without providing these things and to get there needs a few weeks at
least.
I was lucky, the nursing agency AAA liked to employ me as a PCA
(personal care assistant) but I had to wait two weeks for an interview. The
next couple of months I was spoiled with very good shifts in private hospitals,
public hospitals and nursing homes. I have to say that the hospitals and
nursing homes in Australia are very good in comparison to German or English institutions.
On the weekend, I made a
surf course and after work I went, two times a week, after work, to the beach.
I had a very nice working time in Perth.
Western
Australia nurses and carers
get very nice uniforms, when they go to work. For me they look as if they go
out on Sunday. I loved my blue uniform with the black trouser ( www.nursingaustralia.com.au ).
In March there was a
surf event at Margaret River. The Salamon Masters take place a year and the best surfers of the
world take part in the event. I managed to get free entrance because somebody
was asking in a youth hostel for people to make a survey at the event for the municipality of Margaret
River.
Hippies settled down in Margaret River four
decades ago and bought houses and land for a tenth of what they are worth
today. Margaret River is a nice place to live, the ocean is in front of your house and
you can grab your surf bord, just jump into the fresh water.
On the way back we had a
visit at the dolphins resort centre in Bunbury to watch dolphins in the morning
hours.
The Northern Territory, Alice Springs, Darwin.
I spent another few
weeks in Perth and I was waiting until the rain stopped in the Darwin, which is
mostly end of April. It rain half a year on the top end and you can see the
marvellous thunder and light shows at night. But it is very hot, too. And this
isn't everybody's cup of tea. I was waiting until the rain stops because there
is a beautiful wildlife like nowhere else in the world for the first four
weeks, after the rain stops, in Kakadu National Park.
I wished I could go along the west coast up to Darwin but I didn't
have the money for an expensive tour. And I didn't have somebody, who drove a
car and could give me a lift. The Kimberly and the National parks on the West
coast are absolutely worth seeing. The only option was the train, because I had
a ticket already. I drove back to Adelaide and up North with the Guin. I stopped in Alice Springs and and booked a
tour to Ayes Rock and Kings Canyon. To be honest, this tours aren't worth the money, you just sit for
hours in an overcrowded tourist bus, the tour guide tells you very few stories
about the country, which you can read easily in each guide book. I made three
times a tour in Australia and I was three times disappointed. Ayers Rock is about 700 km away
from Alice Springs. It is a long drive but the streets are good and you can get there
with your own car. There is a signed way for tourists the 
whole way around Ayers Rock.
You can go around Ayers Rock without any help within 3 hours. Don't be scared
of the indigenous people because they don't live there. The white man chased
them away hundred years ago. The only good things about tours is, that you
don't have to make your own plans and I underline that I mat a lot of friendly
people, too.
Two days later I was
back in Alice Springs and on the way up to Darwin, made a four hours stop in Katharina, which is a small and cosy
town full of stories. It's worth seeing. You can stay for a weekend, paddle in
a canoe in the sunset, and may you will spot a crocodile. I remember this guy
from the old rail road station with his little museum. He told us a few old
stories about Katharina as we dropped by. The old cattle farms, employed
Aboriginal on the farms but they didn't pay them with money, because they
couldn't deal with money. They paid them with food and accommodation . After
labour came in power in Australia they had to pay the back people the same money than white people.
But the farmer couldn't afford it and had to dismiss all the black people. The
black people couldn't understand, why they have to leave. For us the government
decision sounds very sensible, but the black people couldn't understand. It was
a culture conflict because money is white mans culture. Black people probably
can not understand, how we can sell land for paper ( bank notes).They probably
think you can not own the earth. Because this stories back people and white
people don't greet each other on the street. It met to be for a good purpose,
but it had a negative side effect.
The first thing I did,
after I had arrived in Darwin, was looking for work like I always do. I don't know but all the
time I changed location I ran out of money pretty soon. And I was working
really hard in Perth. I got fairly paid, but even then. Due to the fact that I am a bit
older I normally don't need long to find a job but in Darwin there was
really nothing at this time. Normally it is easier to find a job in the Northern Territory
than anywhere else in Australia. The Northern
Territory is a bit queer. If
it is difficult to find work in your occupation in other states in Australia
you have the best chances to find work in the Northern Territory,
even without a business number, because the NT is so hot that nobody stays for
long. The wages of pay in the NT are good if you have skills. Sometimes you get
more money illegal in NT than you get at home.
In the mean time, I
checked my bank account in Germany
on the internet, which I use for my VISA Credit Card transactions. And I was
shocked by the amount of money from oversee I spent in Australia due to the
fact that I was working all the time and I didn't get much out of it. I was
really angry and felt like chancing the date of my return flight immediately
and go back home. I didn't used my credit card very often, just once in a
couple of weeks for a few night of accommodation or something, but on the end
of a year it is quite a bit.
However there wasn't
enough work for the ordinary backpackers in Darwin at the end
of May. Too many backpacker go up to the top end to see the National Parks in
the Winter of Australia because it gets cold in the South. A room made in the Chile's
Backpacker Hostel told be that he goes on a fisher boat, where he gets really
good money for fishing sharks. He offered me to accompany him to the pier and
asked in the office of the fisher company if they had some work for me, as
well. The receptionist of the fisher company told me, that they might need some
people in two weeks time to unload the incoming fisher boats. But if you are a
backpacker you know more than anything else, that time is money. The offer
wasn't very promising. I heard that working on a fisher boat can be a great
enrichment because the strange things you get out of the ocean are beautiful.
You aren't able to see anything like this anywhere else. However I didn't give
up and worked down the pier to ask on the other fisher boats about work on the
boat.
This was the way I came to the Star Cat. I asked one of the workers
on the Star Cat whether they need somebody. And the answer was yes but I had to
make a quick decision because they left at midnight. I talked with the
skipper, packed my bags in the hostel and was back on board of the Star Cat on
the evening. Pretty soon I knew that is was one of the biggest mistakes of my
life to go on a ship without knowing anything about fishing. The skipper was a
man in his 5Os. He had sailed all his life to sea. He was two meter tall and
had big hands and feet. He was tattooed from the neck to the toe and not very
bright. It is not the man you like to get in trouble with. The other four where
two girls in their twenties, and an Aboriginal guy in the same age, and a
skipper trainee who was just on the boat to learn get to know the boat. and .
One of the girls was built like a man locked like man and worked hard like a
man, too.
The crew was friendly on
the evening we left Darwin. But on the next day the nightmare began. If you are not used to
longer sea journeys, you get sea sick on the first two days. I just couldn't
cope and didn't eat much. You can't go back to Darwin, it is
impossible because they start fishing with big traps about two hundred km in
the ocean, in the middle of Indonesia
and Australia. The boat can't turn just because of you. And it was very hard
physical work. We fished with ninety traps, sunk them in the ocean, hundred
meters deep, and pulled them up again a couple of hours later. We worked from half past four in the morning until 10 o'clock at night and had just
a few hours break. We bushed the heavy traps – one of them weighs 60 kg –
around on deck, get the fish out and sun them again. We didn't do anything else
for the next two weeks, before we returned to Darwin. No land for
14 days! Even on land It would be very hard work but on sea without experience
it was a nightmare. But on the trip I saw shoals of flying fish, a couple of
deep sea crabs, one day we had a shark in the traps, a few other strange
creatures who shine at night if you touch them and you can see sea snakes just
ten meters away form the boat. The sea snake swim on the surface and suddenly
dive into the deep ocean. The crew couldn't stand me they kicked my ass where
ever they could, and gave me a hard time. They were shouting and blaming all
the time and very cheeky, too. I was very happy that I came back to Darwin alive. I
shouldn't be at all surprised, if some young people just disappear on the Darwin Harbour. The
money on the boats is good. You get 3000 dollars for a fortnight trip like
this. When we arrived in Darwin, I had to leave the boat in the morning.
I didn't even get a copy
of my signed contract. They promised me that I would be paid in one week. But
the didn't pay me at all. I called the office and they told me that the skipper
has to distribute the profit. I called the skipper and he told me, that I just
walked off the boat and if I like to talk with him I have to do it in two
weeks, because he is in Queensland. Then I called the boss of the company, a German Engineer who lives
in Victoria, and he told me that he can't do anything because it would be
normal that people don't get paid on the their first fishing trip. But I sighed
a contract, that I get paid ?! He sounded like a sensible man but we were
interrupted on my first phone call because I was in a public phone and I ran
out of change. The next times I called him his secretary always told me, he
isn't available. After this I went to the police and the police told me they
weren't competent because wages weren't their business. They gave me the phone
number of Industrial Relations,who are responsible for wages. I called them and
they told me, they can't help me, because there weren't any agreements between
fishing companies and Industrial Relations. They gave me the number of the
Community Justice Centre in Darwin for a proper advice. The Community Justice Centre told me that they
are not lawyers and they can't advice me but only mediate between the parties.
I found it not enough and gave up because if they don't like to pay me the
couldn't help, either. They gave me the address of the Community Legal Service,
that have a lawyer you can talk to once in a month. Lows are the same for
everybody, rich and poor people, but only for these people, who know all about
them. But you don't obviously because you aren't Australian. I am pretty sure
there is somebody who can help me but you need time to find them.
Work in a Community
After I recovered from
this negative experience. I signed up with NT Medic a very good nursing agency,
who places nurses throughout Australia
in Aboriginal communities. Due to a few friendly encounters in Australia
with Aboriginals I was really curious to meet the indigenous people of Australia.
I liked to work in a Aboriginal community for a while. NT Medic didn't have any
work for me at this time and I decided to leave Darwin. I made a
tour to Lichfield National Park and Alligator River to see the flowering nature and spot a crocodile.
After this I booked a train
ticket back to Alice Springs. I thought, if all backpacker go North because it is nice and warm
in the North, I go South and get the work they left behind. It worked out !
There was plenty of well paid work in Alice
Springs. But is was Winter and it was a
bit cool in the morning. I found work at St. Marie's Hostel. A place for
disabled Aboriginal people, they have always need of skilled stuff in Alice Springs. After about two
weeks, NT Medic called me and offered me a placement in a community at Docker River, which
is 250 km west of Uluru (Ayers Rock) . I met the councillor in Alice Springs and he was happy
with me. On the following day flew out to Uluru. And from Uluru we drove to Docker River with the
jeep.
Docker River was an
Aboriginal Community with estimated 250 people, who live there. But you can
hardly tell accurate numbers of 
residents in Docker River, because people don't tell the council when they move somewhere
else. And sometimes new people come to live there but don't tell the conceil
either you, ether. The people in the community speak Pitenjara, an Aboriginal
language, one of 25O Aboriginal languages in Australia,
who survived. Before the invasion of the Europeans, the Indigenous people of Australia
spoke 700 different languages, and each language was spoken in a few different
dialects. Nowadays Indigenous Australians from different regions and tribs need
English to communicate with each other.
People in Docker River live in
houses, each house has a chimney and electricity. They don't have any central
heating, which is obviously not necessary because it gets very hot in the
summer, but some of the houses had air conditioning. The furniture was very
simple. They had just basic things like a table, a few chairs, a TV and a
cooking stove. Mostly it wasn't very clean. If you see this houses, they
reminds you more for a place where homeless people live, than of acceptable
accommodation.
These people are not really poor, they are just not used to live
like we do. It is understandable because just imagine that a few generations
before the Indigenous people of Australia
were naked. Nowadays they have clothing like we do. Sometimes you see women,
who are breast feeding their babies in public or get undressed for a ritual.
But most of the time they wear clothing. Ten or twenty years ago the men and
women slept in a swag with a sleeping bag inside. However they aren't really
poor because they get the same money an hour for work than as white person
gets. They get money for housing, children, unemployment benefits, employment
programs, building projects, and probably plenty of others. And sometimes they
are really rich, for instance this rich
Aboriginal chief in the Arnham Land in Kakadu National Park
– he flies with his own helicopter home. Some tribe leaders own land and they
lease it to white people for cattle farming. But this is the exception, for
surely the majority doesn't get anything of their wealth. They employ white
people to deal with the money of the government and the administration.
Aboriginals aren't good with dealing with money and time. Time and money is
white mans culture. Most people can't read or write. And every coin, which
isn't made of Gold, like for example the Australian two dollar coin, isn't
worth anything for an Aboriginal. If you give somebody haft a dollar, he may
throw it away, because half a dollar is made of silver. And a lot of people
can't count until hundred. They even don't know the difference between 7 and 4.
95 per cent of all the people in Docker River are
unemployed but they aren't used to work like white people, which means unemployment
doesn't mean the same to them as to white people. Just as a conclusion, the
money from the government for building houses and schools are kind of
reparation payments, due to the fact that the white man stolen their land and
destroyed their culture.
Nowadays there live 750.000 Indigenous people in Australia.
There were millions of them but the white man tried to breed them out and
killed so many. We took their land because of mineral resources, cattle farms and
other reasons. They even made nuclear bomb tests in the desert of South Australia without even warning the people, who live there. The white man
chased them away from the cost lines because they needed the fertile land. At
the beginning of this century they brought them in camps to teach them the
English language and educate them with Christian believes. They weren't allowed
to speak their language and keep their own cultural habits.
I worked in age care at Docker River, a
little nursing home with not more than 16 Pitenjara people. I am really happy I
had this job. It was a really great experience. Docker River is a
real Australian place, you can't go on a place, which is more Australian. Other
people have to pay a lot of money to see an unique place like this because
Aboriginal tours and tourism in Ayers Rock are very expensive. NT Medic paid
good wages. We had to work long hours and our Aboriginal work mates didn't do
much most of the time. Time is something they don't understand. They go after
the sun and the season but can't understand the clock. To explain them a week
is hard too, because to give the days names, like Monday, Tuesday, Sunday, is
very odd for them. To explain them what a month is, is impossible. If they come
to work in the morning, it is unbelievable ,but if they really do work, it is a
miracle. For example it happened that a white work mate took half a day off
because she was invited to a cultural event in the desert and supposed to come
back in the evening, but she came back two days later, because Aboriginals come
back when it is about to come back and not when it is time to come back. Very
difficult! She had to sleep two nights in a swag with an old lady.
I worked each day long
hours to get the work done and made good money. At some point I was really
angry with the black people because they get the same money an hour paid as I
get an just sat in the sun and did nothing. And on the end it was their
community and not my community.
There was something we can learn from them. Is time really such
important? Don't we live in Europe in a place where we always go for the time. If we go to the doctor,
we ask for an appointment and arrange a certain time. If we meet with friends,
we arrange a time, too. Every day we go to work, we have to be there on time.
However, don't we like to do sometimes things we feel like instead of doing
things we have to do because it is time for it? Aboriginals are much closer to
some kind of spirit we lost thousand years ago. They live in a different world
and sometimes it comes to a conflict between different ways of understandings.
In the past a lot of
people went hunting and collected bush food – honey ants, bush tomatoes, bush
coconuts and so on to nourish the family. But now, they can buy their food in a
shop, which is much more convenient than getting the food yourself. But it
causes other problems like rubbish. They hadn't any immortal materials in their
own culture and things you can buy in a shop are very often packed in plastic.
A lot of young people
are depressed because they see their culture going under. Drugs like, petrol
sniffing – few of the young people sniffing petrol, Marijuana , and Alcohol
aren't allowed in the Community but people smuggle it. The next police station
is 400 km away. If you call them, it takes at least, 48 hours until they
arrive.
It is really sad. I
think we shouldn't give these people too much of our culture like TV, drugs,
cinema, advertisements, and so on. One of the back fellows said, white man talk
to much. No, we support them to be proud of their own culture because most of
the black people aren't very self -confident. Abos are very shy, don't like to
talk with you much if the meet you first. Very friendly but shy. If you go to
an Aboriginal community it is very important, that you respect there culture
and laws because it is there land, even if you don't understand it because your
culture is different. If you do this, you will be welcome. And they know we
aren't the enemies, we are there to help. I remember this angry black fellow in
Melbourne who said, for them we are backwards and for us they are backwards.
For instance, the Aboriginal respect the elderly a lot, but in our culture we
mostly disrespect old people. They use much more the resources of life
experience. And it is important because Aboriginal aren't used to write things
down. It is important because It they don't do anything about it, their
knowledge and culture will get lost. Aboriginals are very good sportsman and
musicians, you probably will see indigenous Australians if you watch Rugby or Olympia.
I can tell a lot of
other stories but I should finish now because I don't have the time to write a
book. Last but not least I enjoyed my time at Docker River it was a
very unique experience. And because I am nurse I have a passion for helping
things get better. And because they really need our help there I felt good with
it. You don't get this chance somewhere else, do you? On the end I started to
be impatient because things didn't get better as quick as I thought they would.
But I like to say that the end of my Australian trip was the best part of the
year. I may like to go back there, just wait for a registration as Enrolled
Nurse in Australia. I flew home on the 15th of August 2005 from Sydney after an
inland flight from Ayers Rock with Quantas.
I made my tax return
with a company called taxback.com, which has an internet page with the same
name. You can register online and they organise your tax return and take 12.5 %
of all the money you get for it and transfer the money to a Bank somewhere in
the world. Please make sure you keep all the final pay slips of your employers
because you need them for you tax return at the end of the year. I didn't keep
my final pay slip and taxback.com had to get them, by contacting all my
previous employers. Taxback.com charged me with another 15O$ dollars for it. I
don't think that was fair because getting the pay slips should be included in
the 12.5 %.
You can do your tax
return yourself. It is not difficult and you can do it online at the ATO ( Australian Taxation Office ) internet
page. I find the forms easier than the German tax forms shouldn't be a problem.
I was about to do it myself just for the experience, but then I thought, fuck
it I have other things to do.
Don't forget to claim
your superannuation. Superannuation is 9 % of your wages, which your employer
pays in top of your wages. The money is of your retirement in Australia.
Because you have to leave Australia
after one year, you get all of your super back. You will find all the
information and forms about super and tax return on www.ato.gov.au . But until
now I just got about 850 Euro back and worked all the time.
You should know that you
pay about 30 per cent tax but you get 20 of it back. The thing is just a bit
tricky. There are some regulations I don't understand properly, for example
Residence and None Residence Regulations. None- residence of Australia
pay more tax than residents of Australia.
You are resident of Australia if you stay at one place for one year and keep your address.
Because you are backpacking and you like to see the country, obviously, you are
a non–resident of Australia. It is recommended that you give the taxation office the same
address from the very beginning, without changing it at all, on your Tax file
number declaration form ( you have to fill it out each time you start
employment). You should get an address where you can store post for one year.
But I lost the general
idea, because somebody told me, that you get all your tax back of the employer
,you declare as your main and first employer, back and just a percentage of all
the others. This regulations doesn't really make sense to me because with a
Working Holiday Visa, you aren't allowed to work with each employer longer than
three month.
Nachwort
I hope I get
a lot of feedback for all this information and please let me know if you find some
mistakes in the text or things, which may incomplete.
[email protected]
I cannot give any guarantee that all the information on this page
and all the internet pages, linked to it correct and true. But I hope it will
help a lot of people, who like to apply for a Working Holiday Visa in Australia.