Call me Farmer Phil.

Actually, never ever ever call me Farmer Phil if you want to retain my friendship. I only used that term because it's late and I don't have the cognitive power to conjure up a different title. Just throwin' that out there.

As of Monday, 23 February 2009, I will technically be a farmer. Here's how it happened.

After selling my bike (and my original plans with it) I left Ulladulla with my new 'wherever the wind blows' philosophy in full gear. I had no clue where I was going to go next... up to Queensland? South, to Adelaide? At the last second I randomly decided Melbourne, one of the destinations of my original cycling layout. If fires were a problem, the bus would be faster than my on a bike.

The bus left Ulladulla at 8:30 pm... twelve bumpy, sleepless, atrociously-uncomfortable hours later I was in Melbourne, Australia. I wandered the city for a few hours; the number of people on the streets was directly proportional to how high in the sky the sun was... at 7:30 a.m. it was a ghosttown. By 10:00 the streets were clogged.



I checked into a hostel for two days and explored the city. There was nothing overly spectacular... just another big city, really. I liked Sydney better. I went grocery shopping that evening, only to have most of my stock stolen the next day. Uncool. The loss of my food kind of got me down; I'd have left Melbourne bummed about the overall experience had it not been for meeting a group of Israeli girls who randomly invited me to join in a card game. It was a lot of fun... I learned an Israeli army card game, and a ton of Hebrew, some of which I actually remember. It turns out my name is one little dot away from meaning "elephant" ...a somewhat dubious honor, I think.




Bored with the big city, I decided to return to Sydney and head north, to see the Queensland coast. Everyone I'd talked to said it was the best place to go, so... why not? I hitchhiked through a tunnel and out of the city, then took a train, and finally another uncomfortable bus ride to get to Wollongong. I stayed there for a a night, meeting up with Sarah and Alex, two Austrian girls I'd met a week before in Ulladulla... officially the coolest people I've met on the trip so far. They gave me a ride into Manly, Australia... just outside the North Sydney city limits. I stayed at a hostel there for a day, enjoying the beach and planning my next move.

I'd heard from a few people about Willing Workers On Organic Farms (WWOOF), a program designed to let foreigners without work visas exchange free room and board for five hours a day worth of work. Sarah gave me some more information about it; you had to purchase a membership, it seemed, to join. My money running low pretty quickly, I decided to go for it. Free food and accomodation would make living pretty inexpensive.

I rode the ferry into Sydney the next morning. An hour later I was sitting in Backpacker's World Travel, and office for ...well... helping backpackers travel the world. Sixty bucks poorer, I had the WWOOFing manual in my hands. Time to get down to business. Miraculously, I found a hostel for twenty bucks a night in the middle of downtown Sydney... with free internet, no less. I checked in, got my stuff situated, and started emailing contacts.

Two hours later I got a response. A guy rennovating a hotel for tourism purposes in the Blue Mountains, 100 km west of Sydney, agreed to sign me on as hired help for landscaping, general construction, and ...yea, farming. I was stoked beyond all belief to get a response so soon (twenty or so more would pour in over the next two days.) Then the guy sent me a website link to the views from the place I'm staying in.

I nearly wet myself. I'm not going to post any pictures from the site; I'll take some myself and upload them. The place is spectacular by digital image; I'm sure in person it'll be even more so. Since then I've spent time enjoying the city; including walking a mile from the hostel to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge at night, where I took a picture of the Opera House. Absolutely amazing view.


Tomorrow I have off, and Monday I'll catch a ride to Newnes, Australia. What awaits me there? Who knows. But remember. Don't ever, ever, ever call me Farmer Phil.

The end.