The working life in Brisbane

Our first two weeks in Brisbane have been great. We moved into our ultra modern apartment and it's safe to say that we are hardly 'slumming it'. Our room mates are a couple called Brook and Rhys, they are about 4 years older than us and have been really welcoming and friendly.

We are staying in Bowen Hills and are approximately a 25 minute walk from the CBD and thus from where we are working for the next 6 weeks having bagged ourselves internships at Morgans, Australia's largest stockbroking firm. This sounds relatively fancy yet, as I'm sure is the case for most internships, we spend our days doing admin based tasks, filling in forms and data entry. We interweave these tasks with plenty of tea-drinking and clock-watching, willing the day to go quickly. Either way its exciting to be working and earning some dollar. The office is located right on the river front so its really lovely to be able to spend our lunch time enjoying such a great view. I decided to comment on this saying to Alex 'I really like the fact that Brisbane has a big river running through it'...he turned and replied 'Do you mean just like London Bex?' Yes I suppose I do.

The view from work

Having experienced my first proper 'Friday feeling' we have been making the most of our weekends. We've explored various areas in Brisbane, including a very cute market called 'The Finders Keepers Market' and having drinks at a lesser-known roof top bar with gorgeous fairy lights. Brook and Rhys drove us to the Gold Coast where they attempted to teach us to surf in a very strong current. Alex handled this well, whereas I nearly drowned. To top off the surfing experience I then majorly freaked out when a big jellyfish decided to hang out next to my surfboard and I. Thankfully Alex came to my rescue! We also went for a great lunch and then explored Byron Bay, watching the sun set at Byron Bay's iconic light house, which we've been told is Australia's most eastern point.

With G20 being held in Brisbane, this Friday was declared a bank holiday for those that live or work here, so we spent our extended weekend enjoying the Gold Coast theme parks with Brook and some of her friends. Friday we went to Sea World, which sadly was rather disappointing in comparison to the Sea World in Orlando. Nevertheless my highlight was patting the sting rays, this was amusing and they are surprisingly both soft and slimy. We best described them as 'squidgey'.

Today we got 'Wet & Wild', enjoying a great, yet exhausting day at the water park. Our favourite ride was a bit of an adrenaline rush; the rider is locked into a small standing pod, a timer counts down and then the floor quickly drops away and you fall, fast!


Tomorrow evening we plan to check out the 'Colour Me Brisbane' light show.

The remaining part of our stay on the farm

Remembering that our stay on the Rackemann farm is an exchange, our hard work for accommodation and food, a vast number of our days were filled with fence building (,with many barb wire cuts and grazes a long the way,) and cattle herding. It is calving season on the farm currently so every few days a new calf was born. They named a calf after each of us so they'll be able to remember us when they see them grazing around the farm, until they end up as hamburgers anyway :/! During our stay we helped out when the vet came and preg tested the cattle. As I'm sure you all know how this procedure plays out I decided to take a backseat role scribing the cow's ID number and recording the results from the vet. This put me safely out of the firing line for the amount of cow poo that was flying around... Alex wasn't so lucky.

Other than 'farm work' we went to the local Wondai horse races and won a staggering $6.70. I also went and volunteered at Tommy's school for a morning helping the children with their reading and literary skills.

For Alex's birthday we drove to Australia Zoo for the day, which was a scenic, 3 hour drive from the farm. This was a lovely way to spend Alex's birthday. We saw the otter show, the tiger show and the big 'Wildlife Warriors' show. Our favourite part was 'Roo Heaven'. Here you can purchase 'roo food' from a vending machine then are free to approach the kangaroos and wallabies to feed and pet them. Alex also spent a good half an hour trying to get the kangaroo selfie below.

Pam and Greg are an elderly couple, both still keen travellers and outback farmers that currently live in their crazy caravan on the Rackemann's land. Greg helps out on the farm so we saw a lot of him, yet Pam is pretty immobile so sadly spends her days doing crosswords in the caravan. We figured it would be nice to invite them over for a 'birthday tea' for Alex. Pam loves quizzes so we asked her to prepare a quiz for the evening as we knew how much she would like this. This led to an eventful games night including bingo and a number of quizzes that were actually really good. The quiz question that has really stuck in our minds follows:

True or false?
In Japan they grow square watermelons because they are easier to stack.

TRUE. Crazy.



To end our time on the Rackemann farm with a bang and also as a nice surprise for Maddie and Tommy, Alex and I planned a secret halloween party. We got creative and made, painted, drew and fashioned a number of decorations and some very budget costumes with bin bags and sheets. We created games including 'pin the tale on the witch's cat' and a mummifying game involving lots of toilet roll. I wrote rhyming riddles and hide them over the house which led to a very messy obstacle course and set of challenges created by Alex. Overall it was a great success. At least if all else fails in life we know that we'll make excellent children's party planners.

In further when we look back on our stay at the Rackemann farm I know that we will remember it fondly.


Next stop, Brisbane. Next chapter in our journey, WORK.