After spending a month in Perth, exploring and relaxing, I started looking for work. I tried a job at a marketing agency which did not go very well for me.
( Previous blog post) After that I was offered a part time position as a kitchen hand at a small restaurant. I couldn’t find anything else so I accepted the job until I could find something better. There didn’t seem to be anything better. There were too many backpackers in Perth and not enough work for everyone, so I started looking for work else where. Not even a day later, I was offered a position as a live-in barman at a hotel in a small rural town of Onslow. The pay was good and the conditions seemed great. Great enough for me to decided to take the job without thinking twice, even though it was 1300 km north of Perth.
Getting there was going to be the interesting part. I had 3 options: take a plane, take a bus or buy a car and drive through the dessert. I got offered the job on a Tuesday and was supposed to start the following Monday, so my initial idea was to buy a plane ticket and fly out there. Turns out the airport is privately owned and all flights are bought out two, three weeks in advance. There was no way I was going to get there for Monday. Not wanting to take a bus, I turned to option number three. I started looking for a cheap car in the Perth area. I had a budget of about 1500$ and did not want to spend any more. I quickly realized that that was a bad idea. Cars that did fit my budget, would probably not make it 1300km through the dessert and cars that would, were way out of my budget. On top of all that, I have never driven a right hand drive car and I did not want to risk driving alone through the Australian bush.
I was only left with one option: the bus. The ticket for the bus cost a bit less than a plane, 270$, but where a plane would take a 2-3 hours, the bus took 22 hours to get to Onslow. I have never traveled by bus before. This was going to be a first. But TWENTY TWO hours? I cant sit for more than 15 minutes without getting bored, what am I supposed to do to entertain myself during all this time? I would have to figure that out.
The bus was scheduled to leave at 9:30 PM from Perth Station. I got there for 9 PM and was one of the first people to arrive. I took my assigned seat by the window and watched as more passengers got on the bus, the entire time hoping that there would be no one sitting beside me. There was already very little leg room or elbow room for me. Having someone else sitting next to me for that long would be very very uncomfortable. Couple of minutes later a man with crutches walked in and was assigned the seat next to me. The bus driver quickly realized that this seating arrangement wasn’t going to work and moved the man with the crutches to the back of the bus where he would get more space for his broken leg and his crutches. I just got lucky! I would have both seats to myself.
We left the city and it wasn’t long before we were on a small, dark, one lane, county highway. It would be a road like this for the entire journey. We traveled all through the night, only making a couple of stops for drop offs, the occasional bathroom break and to switch drivers. The bus had 2 drivers that switched every 3 hours. There wasn’t anything interesting happening at night. It was very dark and I could not see any of the scenery, so I just passed out.
I was woken up at 7 AM by the driver. We were stopped at a roadhouse for breakfast. Having been all over USA on truck I was used to american truck stops. This was nothing like it. It was a very small, old building the size of small house with a couple of gasoline pumps and big parking lot. I didn’t feel very hungry at the time but decided to go for a walk to stretch my legs. I came back from my walk and the bus was locked. Nobody was allowed back on the bus until we were leaving. I didn’t left my wallet on the bus and didn’t have any money in my pocket to even buy a bottle of water. I ended up convincing one of the drivers to let me get my bank card so I could get some food.
There wasn’t too much happening during the next couple of hours of travel. That is until a giant eagle almost hit the windscreen of the bus. It was flying above the road and heading straight for the bus. The bus driver had to slow down almost to a full stop to make sure the eagle had enough time to gain altitude to dodge the bus. Luckily that was our only encounter with wild life on the road.
After a few more long hours of travel and a couple of roadhouse stops later. I was dropped off at the Onslow turn off. Since the town is about 70km away from theain highway, the bus does not go there. I had to be picked up hotel manager, who was there to greet me when I got off the bus.
On the way into town, he told me a little bit about Onslow, the hotel and what I would be doing there. I didn’t get to see much of Onslow when we drove in because it was dark, but there wasn’t too much to see. It’s a small town built up of a couple of main streets and a few smaller streets with houses. I got to meet alot of the staff and some of the locals as soon as I got there, all of whom were really friendly.
After being shown my room and where the amenities were, I grabbed a couple ofdrinks with the people oet earlier and went to bed. I was to start my new adventure as a barman in a country pub the next morning.