I have been really bad about working on this blog this year. I want to get back into it so here is a small update about what I have done so far this year. I will try to write some more updates soon.

I will start by saying that I spent New Year’s in Sydney, and even though the weather was a bit miserable, I still managed to have a great night. I met up with a group of people, and we managed to find a perfect spot to watch the fireworks. After New Year’s, I spent a couple more weeks in Sydney and then started my trip up the Australia East Coast.

I used Stray Travel as my transport up the coast and I felt they did a really amazing job. They hit all of the main stopping points and some points that most backpackers never go see. Here is a list of everywhere I went where I spent for at least one night: Sydney, Barrington Tops, Spot X Surf Camp, Nymboida River, Byron Bay, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Noosa, Rainbow Beach, Noose (again), Emu Park, Airlie Beach, Magnetic Island, Tully Rainforest and Cairns. Most of the locations I spent numerous nights at, but a few of them were only one night. I was actually stuck in Emu Park for 2 weeks because of flooding in the northern areas, but at least it was a beautiful place to be stuck. There is way too much to talk about in this post about the east coast so I will be sure to do another post with a full review of Stray and the trip up north.

After arriving in Cairns, I spent around a week doing a lot of activities around the area. See the photo below for a sneak peek of one of my many trips. After my eight nights in a hostel called Gilligan’s, I decided to use some credit card points to find a place to stay for a few days by myself. After nearly six months of living in shared hostel rooms, it was time to treat myself! I spent five nights in an apartment in Cairns while looking for work so that I can do the qualified work to stay for a second year in Australia.

I did not find any work while I was in that apartment but I did find out about a hostel that was doing final touches before opening so I made my way there to help with the final preparations. This turned out to be a really good decision because it turned into me finding a job as a Night Manager for this hostel which also qualifies toward my second year. At this point I am now about 2 months into my 3 months required work and then I will be able to apply to stay for a 2nd year here in Australia.

I will create another post all about the 2nd year visa options in Australia. I know a lot of people find it very confusing when it comes to finding work so I will do my best to make it super easy to understand no matter which working holiday visa you have.

For now I hope you enjoy this seeing what has been going on with me, I will try to have another post in the very near future!