First month in Australia and still alive

After spending one month in Australia it’s time to write down some facts about this beautiful country. Let me first tell you what were my hypothesis before the arrival.

1. Australia is huge.

2. Australia is very expensive.

3. Australian living standard is high.

4. Australians are helpful, easy-going and relaxed people.

5. Aussies drink a lot.

6. There are all kind of dangerous animals everywhere.

Now I’ll repeat the exercise from Uni times and will after 30 days of "research" support or reject my hypothesis.

1. Australia really is huge!

People who come down under with a Work and Holiday Visa (which lasts one year) have quite a lot of time to see things. They are also allowed to work. So they find a job, earn approx. 20$/hour and spend the earned money on traveling around Australia. Perfect combination, isn’t it?

[Info for all Slovenian people under 30: You can also apply for Work and Holiday Visa here. The last time I checked the conditions there were 200 places available for each year and a total cost of 600€ (+/- 100€). I didn’t decide to apply as I was not planning to stay in Australia for a year. So in my case the cost was too high.]

Well, I have just 3 months on a tourist visa, so I needed to decide which part of Australia do I want to discover. I booked a flight to Melbourne and first traveled around the coastal part of Victoria. Now I’m in New South Wales and will continue going up the east coast to Brisbane, Queensland. When I checked my route on a map I realized how huge Australia is and that what I’m going to see is just a really tiny part of it.

2. Australia is very expensive.

It depends from which country you come from but for most of the people the prices here are quite high.

An overview of Australian prices:

• Coctails in a bar around 25$ (16€)

• 2 beers in a bar 32$ (20€)

• The cheapest small 6-pack of beers in a liquor store (you can’t buy alcohol in a supermarket, can be tricky sometimes) 17$ (11€)

• 1 kg tomato in a supermarket 9$ (5,8€)

• Pasta/pizza in a restaurant around 20-30$ (13-20€)

• 1 scoop of ice cream 5$ (3,2€)

• McDonalds ice cream 2$ (1,3€) - you know where you can find me :)

• 1 pack of cigarettes Marlboro Gold 30$ (20€)

• 1l of petrol 1,44$ (0,94€) - you can still find things cheaper from ours :)

3. Australian living standard is high.

If you have high prices in your mind while seeing all the bars and restaurants full, I think the standard is high enough that people can actually enjoy life. Which is great! For me, as a low-budget traveler, eating and drinking outside is unfortunately not an option. But I found a great alternative. More about that in my next blog.

4. Australians are helpful, easy-going and relaxed people.

Yes, they are. They will help you on the street if you’re lost and have the face ‘I have no idea in which direction I need to go’, they will say ‘Hi’ if you’ll go for a walk in a park and go past someone, they will ask you ‘How are you’ when you’ll do your groceries.

I see their lifestyle as a relaxed one. The sea and the sun have a huge impact on that. If I think for a moment, all the places by the sea and with lots of sun have this easy-going, ‘chillaxed’ way of life which we all love, don’t we? But what for us Europeans puts a cherry on a top are the surf beaches and this whole thing about them.

5. Aussies drink a lot.

Most of the time I can agree with that. I arrived in Melbourne right before the Christmas and stayed there for the New Years Eve as well. There were plenty of situations where I saw people of all ages walking ‘legless’ (I’ve learned the expression from Aussies :)) down the street in the early evening. If we put the festive December aside there are still things that indicate high alcohol consumption. As I already mentioned you can’t buy alcohol in supermarkets. Neither you can buy alcohol in every bar. They need a special license to sell it which always takes time before you actually get one. The cheapest alcohol I found until now, was in Aldi. But hey, not all of the Aldis have the license to sell it. So yeah, Australian government makes it complicated.

6. There are all kind of dangerous animals everywhere.

Thank God I was wrong about that. :) It’s true that I was not anywhere “in the wild” yet, but I can say that cities are quite a secure place to be if you don’t want to step on a snake or be eaten by a shark. ;) Anyway, I will still be cautious and will not underestimate Australian nature.

One month is already behind me and I have two more left. We'll see if I will still think the same as I do now about the so called 'Oz'. :)