Australia

[Riku]

I'm looking to move out to Australia for about a year, i know getting a work visa is easy and i eligible, Just wondering how cheap it is, how are the people and so on. So please tell me what you fellow travelers think of the place.

 

[Matt Derrick]

i've been hearing a lot about a place called nimbin lately. i too am a little obsessed with going to australia. i know very little about nimbin, but from what people have been telling me online is that it sounds like a very slab city-like place with a lot of hippies, so that might be great or terrible, depending on your disposition.

i've been cataloging a lot of places id like to see there, so if it's helpful, you can check them out here:

https://www.evernote.com/pub/mattpi...tralia&n=63e5714e-012f-4580-83ad-1d5422835e62

that's a list of all my "to do" destinations, with the search for "australia" already thrown in.

also, someone told me about the national harvest guide, which i guess has a lot of good info on places to work, and work visa information. im sure you can find a more updated guide online (this is from 2011), but i've attached the pdf here anyways if you want to check it out.

when are you planning on going?

 

[youknewtherisk]

i spent a year in australia on a work visa. if you want to make a shit load of money go to perth- thats where all the mining is at so the economy is booming with lots of jobs. i made 18 dollars an hour minimum wage in a kitchen, and the u.s. dollar is the same as the australian dollar, so do the math. i didnt go to nimbin, i wanted to but changed my mind because of what people told me. its suppose to be very touristy and lame. go to tasmania. its fucking amazing. i suggest working for 6 months then traveling. you can only work 6 months at each job anyways. adelaide is cool too, very cool diy scene there. melbourne is the alternative capital but its very cliquey and people are pretentious. sydney sucks. never made it up to brisbane or darwin. people in australia can be very rednecky or very nice. but overall it was an amazing expierience and i suggest you do it

 

[kickthatshit]

You really don't want to go to Nimbin. The locals are nice, but everybody else is a wanker. It's like Arcata in harvest season, but 100 times worse, and you're not going to find any harvest jobs. The countryside around there is nice.

 

[duckbilledplatypus]

Nimbin can be a bit too hippie for a lot of people. I never wanted to go there but then ended up in a community just 5 min out of nimbin but that was great. There's some nice people in Nimbin, and there now is even a Food not Bombs every Friday with movie screening. But just for looking at Nimbin I wouldn't go there, but some of the communities around it are worth checking out especially when interested in permaculture.

Australia is expensive, but great dumpsters, relatively easy also to 'borrow' from supermarkets and easy hitchhiking as well as quite a few couchsurfing/bewelcome opportunities.
getting drunk is fucking expensive

I had better experiences in Melbourne than youknewtherisk but yeah city is full of hipsters, but as I learned even hipsters can be politically quite sound. I really like Melbourne, if you go there I can tell you more.

alice springs is supposed to have a great queer community as well as I heard.

and good paid jobs besides fruitpicking are found more on the west, was a dishwasher for 20 buck cash
never did fruitpicking though, didn't like a lot of the other backpackers I met and didn't want to stay in a hostel

hope this helped

 

[Matt Derrick]

Nimbin can be a bit too hippie for a lot of people. I never wanted to go there but then ended up in a community just 5 min out of nimbin but that was great. There's some nice people in Nimbin, and there now is even a Food not Bombs every Friday with movie screening. But just for looking at Nimbin I wouldn't go there, but some of the communities around it are worth checking out especially when interested in permaculture.

Australia is expensive, but great dumpsters, relatively easy also to 'borrow' from supermarkets and easy hitchhiking as well as quite a few couchsurfing/bewelcome opportunities.
getting drunk is fucking expensive

I had better experiences in Melbourne than youknewtherisk but yeah city is full of hipsters, but as I learned even hipsters can be politically quite sound. I really like Melbourne, if you go there I can tell you more.

alice springs is supposed to have a great queer community as well as I heard.

and good paid jobs besides fruitpicking are found more on the west, was a dishwasher for 20 buck cash
never did fruitpicking though, didn't like a lot of the other backpackers I met and didn't want to stay in a hostel

hope this helped

thanks man, that was very helpful! what's in Melbourne? and is there any epic destinations or maybe crazy mind blowing places that i should absolutely see out there? what about abandoned places? i like urban exploration!

 

[Matt Derrick]

go to tasmania.

im curious what's so great about tasmania?

 

[East]

Their immigration site says the year long working holiday visa applies until you're 31. That's kind of disappointing, being that I just turned 28. I'd definitely like to take advantage of it though in the next few years though, keeping an eye on this topic for sure.

http://www.immi.gov.au/Visas/Pages/462.aspx

 

[Matt Derrick]

Their immigration site says the year long working holiday visa applies until you're 31. That's kind of disappointing, being that I just turned 28. I'd definitely like to take advantage of it though in the next few years though, keeping an eye on this topic for sure.

http://www.immi.gov.au/Visas/Pages/462.aspx

yeah, i didn't realize that until recently, and I'm 34. i thought the limit was 30 though? i can't get that website link to come up...

 

[East]

yeah, i didn't realize that until recently, and I'm 34. i thought the limit was 30 though? i can't get that website link to come up...

http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working-holiday/

Hmm, try to go here, select visa options and then Work and Holiday Visa (Subclass 462, for Americans). And yeah, the limit is 30 as you've said, it's before the 31st birthday. There are probably other options available though and maybe ways to appeal for an exception with this route. Not really sure. I'm guessing this site really doesn't have everything judging by the fact that even the Work and Holiday Visa (Subclass 417, for Canadians) leads to a 404 error.

 

[duckbilledplatypus]

thanks man, that was very helpful! what's in Melbourne? and is there any epic destinations or maybe crazy mind blowing places that i should absolutely see out there? what about abandoned places? i like urban exploration!

imo melbourne has heaps to offer for a lot of different tastes, there are a lot of soup kitchens and food not bombs (they cook every monday and I think wednesday at Irene's Warehouse). Theres a few nice warehouses/social centers as well as some squatted places that have things going on. if you dig hardcore/punk/grind stuff there is the black goat that has shows. and heaps of bars (but i didn't go out in bars much bec so expensive)
sydney also has a nice anarchist place called 'black rose'

other then that, australia is huge and def has a lot of mindblowing things to see if you are into nature. unfortunately most of the time you would need your own 4wd to reach the good destinations like the kimberleys.

you can find urban exploration for sure, nice warehouses and factories

but also Australia still has a major problem with discrimination especially against indigenous people and it's not getting better with their new prime minister Tony Abott.
here just a very short article http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...y?fb_source=timeline&ref=profile&refid=17#_=_

 

[Just Jen]

I've been to every state and territory in Australia, and Nimbin is a great 'experience' but its like a drug itself, was there in 2012 for 'just one night' ended up staying 3 months and last year was more flexible and told myself just to stay one week, stayed a month and ended up in rehab. It is a beautiful place but its like a strange dome, people talk about the dome- drive 10km out of town and I remember asking a friend 'what is this?' and he replied 'the real world'...If you go to Nimbin don't stay too long on the main street, (its got the best and worst of humanity on one street) I got a place wwoofing in Tuntable Creek a few kms outta town, the Northern Rivers Region is such a beautiful place don't get stuck in Nimbin.....I'm from Victoria, and in Melbourne (Northcote) there's the Melbourne Anarchist Club (MAC) I went there on election day, there's some really lovely people there, we knew Abbott would win so we switched the tv station to the football instead and got drunk (well I got drunk)....Tasmania has a great squatting/ punk scene, was living there for a while last year

 

[Just Jen]

p.s- its pretty expensive coming to Australia and getting a visa, a lot of the travelers I met had a visa in New Zealand so would fly back there every couple or so

 

[jelly]

Unless you're really into hiking/camping/rainforests/weird animals, don't waste your time (and all your fucking money!) coming to Australia. Environmentally it's like nowhere else but culturally it's a backwards, racist wasteland. Coming here to work might be worth it considering how much better the minimum wage is here than in the US, but you'd wanna grab your money and run, as the cost of living here is way way way higher than in the us.
imo the best thing about Australia (as a nation, not a landmass) is the welfare system, and you don't really benefit from that unless you have citizenship.

 

[Boneless]

What they said ^