I Ran Out Of Money On The Other Side Of The World! Not Today Blog 7

I landed in Australia with 500 EUR to my name and a blocked credit card. Within 9 days, I spent all my money, borrowed 180 EUR to buy a car and earned 650 EUR back.

On a detour to Australia

6^th January 2016, Brunei. Seb and I did not realize how expensive Brunei would be. We sat down at Burger King as we had been doing for the past few days. But this time, we decided to apply for a Working Holiday Visa in Australia.

My bank statement told me that I was able to do another two months in Asia. I would fly back home to Hotel Mama with my last bit of money. That is if I did not move flights home from 30^th February to August 30^th. I could not go home. Not just yet.

Seb and I took a shot that after another month in Vietnam we would fly out to Australia and instantly find work. We met Danny in Vietnam and became best friends. We persuaded him to cancel his non-refundable flights back to England and come to Australia with us.

So, there were the three of us. About to run out of money. None of us is keen on going home just yet.

Chinese New Year and Tax-Free Beer

The month in Vietnam was wild. Seb and I bought motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh City. We drove up to Dalat where we met Danny.  Then did Nha Trang and Hoi An for some of the best parties on the trip. We sold our bikes in Hue and took the bus up to Hanoi where we got our Medical Check-Ups for Australia sorted. Oh, and we made Danny apply for a visa too. Seems like you’re stuck with us mate!

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Later, we flew out to Malaysia to wait for our Visa Approvals. We explored Kuala Lumpur, had some fun nights in Penang (Tipsy Tiger Party Hostel is madness!) and enjoyed the Malay kitchen. In Langkawi we gave ourselves some beach time before heading out to Oz.

We spent Chinese New Year in Penang. It blew my mind.

Soon we had our visas granted.

This was followed by me waking up too hungover (because I spent all night at a tax-free beer corner) and missing our bus from Penang to Kuala Lumpur (meaning we would probably miss our flights to Australia). We then found a last-minute domestic flight to KL, arriving at the airport in time but then we almost missed our flight to Australia. How the fuck were we supposed to know that the time printed on our boarding passes was the departure, not the boarding time.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Seneca

You get to see a lot of angry faces when ground staff needs to re-open the glass doors to the passenger boarding bridge.  Literally, every single person in the aircraft was seated and waiting for take-off.

Perth Baby

Danny, Seb and I were nervous when we landed at Perth Airport. Immigration was supposed to randomly check if people on a Working Holiday Visa (Subclass 417) were carrying a bank statement showing 3000+ AUD (1800 EUR) to prove sufficient funds for their stay.

We did not get checked.

Something had to go wrong. It did. My Credit Card was blocked. I could not get any money out of the ATM. From that day onwards, every time I tried to withdraw money, I had to call my bank to get my card unblocked.

Great start. So here I was on 500 EUR in a shitty hostel with no job.

Almonds

I spent the first few nights in Australia using free gym passes. During the day, I was job-hunting. Our hostel was 32 AUD (19 EUR) a night. About a week and a half later I found myself with -34 EUR on my bank account.

We started off by searching Facebook groups, noticeboards, Gumtree ads. After two unsuccessful days, we visited Job Agencies and sent applications. Also, we sorted ourselves out with bank accounts and SIM cards.

On day 5, we sat down in Domino’s exhausted and with no prospect on a source of income any time soon. Whilst we were waiting for our pizzas, I googled 15 phone numbers of farms in Western Australia. I gave each of us 5 numbers to call. There was this one girl from Great Ocean Farms. I believe her name was Karla. She answered the phone and gave me the contact details of Brendon. All other contacts were dead ends, so I gave Brendon a call.

Apparently, 3 positions had just opened because people had resigned on the farm without notice and he was urgently looking for replacements.

“Danny, Seb, I think we have a job!”

I knew it was a job on a farm, but I couldn’t understand Brendon’s Australian accent. I heard something that sounded like “ammons”. Can you harvest ammons or ammens? He invited us to a job interview in 3 days’ time. We immediately jumped on Gumtree again to buy a car. We went all in.

I had to borrow 300 AUD (180 EUR) off Seb so we could buy that white Hyundai Excel. Excited for the drive up to Eneabba. On day 8 we drove up for the job interview. We got the job and Brendon asked us to start working 2 days later. Weekly pay was 22 AUD (13 EUR) per hour. 11-hour shifts. Tractor driving.

It was an almond farm. No ammons…

One week later I received a pay slip with 1100 AUD (650 EUR). I repaid Seb’s money and was ready for the months ahead!

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I wanted to continue to travel, continue to dream. I wanted nothing else. The point of no return was also the point of all return. It didn’t make sense to think about why this was all not a good idea. Something inside me knew that this would work out.

Left the farm with what, 16 grand?

Why Not Today

We spend a lot of time thinking about why we are better off not doing things. But we never really visualize the worst case. There are not many worst-case scenarios that you can’t recover from.

Minor setbacks, major comebacks.

For me, there was a safe option. I would have been at home in Germany on my last 500 EUR.

But, I would have missed out on the white beaches of Esperance, free wine tastings in Margaret River, Sunday sessions in Fremantle, dolphins in Monkey Mia, scenic gorges of Karijini National Park, loads of new friends and 89 days of 11-hour shifts in airconditioned tractors and harvesters driving down the long lanes of almond and olive trees with 1.5 km/h speed.

Why not today. Today, why not write down, in detail, what the worst case would be if you did the one thing you always thought would be a bad idea. And then look at it. Surely, you can instantly come up with ideas on what to do if the worst-case happened.

Is your worst-case really a worst case?

D

And again thanks Mon for reading through this before I uploaded it! xx