I’m back! No, I haven’t forgotten about my blog. I’m very aware that it’s been nearly a month since I updated last, which certainly breaks my guidelines of trying to do an entry every couple of weeks. I suppose part of the reason is that there hasn’t been a whole lot going on recently that’s blog-able. I even had a conversation with a co-worker about it the other day. For the most part, there aren’t a lot of things that happen day to day that my general readers would care about. There’s only so much of this kind of stuff that you guys would find entertaining: Got another mosquito bite today. Saw a snake. Picked him up and played with him. Fed a centipede to a lizard. Sold a meat pie. Struggled to open the “twist top” with a bottle opener on yet ANOTHER bottle of beer. Spilled unidentified food substances on myself. Yadda yadda…. You get the idea. My personal journal has been a bit thin over the past few weeks as well. Now that’s not to say that my time at Glen Helen has been dull towards the end, after I got over the excitement of the new surroundings and new job - quite the contrary, in fact. I just think towards the end of my stay in the West MacDonnell ranges, I simply started to focus more on living my life than constantly stressing about squeezing in the time to write about it – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
We finally got over the slump of the slow season. While I adore the heat of the desert in the summer, most people disagree and Central Australia isn’t super packed with tourists during the summertime (keep in mind summer is Dec/Jan/Feb!) I started in the midst of the slow season, where it was commonplace for there to be only a couple of the 25 motel rooms with people in them. Things start to pick up a bit in April, so for my final wok weekend I got a taste of what the busy season is like. My last weekend was Easter weekend, when the place was jam packed. Full motel, half-full backpacker bunkhouse, and half-full campground. That’s a LOT of f*cking people, who all need stuff all at the same time. It was especially tough because other than Easter weekend, it’s still not super busy, so the staff numbers aren’t really at what they normally would be when the place is consistently full over July & August. That meant there was a LOT of work to be done and not a lot of workers, ALL of the time. It was interesting. On Good Friday I started work at 2 pm and by the time we closed up the place so that it wasn’t a complete dire mess, it was 1:15 am. The next day I started at 12:30 in the afternoon and left at 12:15 am, just shy of the 12-hour mark. Easter weekend is a big family camping and party weekend in Australia – no partying for us in the hospitality industry though! Despite being slightly stressed out, I was glad for the experience. It gets quite crazy when the place is hopping. Plus the live entertainment recently started up again, so the homestead has a much livelier feel to it with live music 5 nights a week. Much different from those early days in January where we were closing up the registers and locking the doors at 8:30 at night, and I spent my days windexing windows that had been thoroughly windexed the day before, waiting for someone to show up and buy a coke or a beer or an ice cream cone.
We also had some recent missing person drama. A mentally disabled man somehow got away from his family while going out for a hike by Redbank gorge and was gone for quite a while. We cancelled our scenic helicopter flights and the pilot spent his days doing search and rescue instead. There were cops and search and rescue people everywhere for a couple of days. He was finally found, sitting on a cliff somewhere. He had eventually realized to light a fire, and our pilot was able to spot the smoke.
My last shift was quite special. It was documented as a photo essay! If I could go back in time, one of the things I would have done differently at Glen Helen is better photo documentation. I spent all this time at this place and with a certain small group of people, and barely had any pictures of anything at all! My last shift I had my good friend & next door neighbor (whose identity shall be suppressed per his/her wishes!!! J) follow me around and take pictures of everything. Literally. Everything. I even have pictures of me taking out the trash and trying in vain to discern the old, scruffy cutlery from the new shiny stuff. It’s quite brilliant actually. Here are some of my favorite ones:
Me helping someone at reception:
Me pumping gas!!!!
Me being a waitress:
Me doing my favorite activity – restocking the fridge!!!!
And, the one thing I thought I’d never do in life – me being a bartender!
I was pretty content with most of my last shift. It was fairly busy, and we had a pretty packed restaurant that night as well. I did the waitressing all by myself, with no help and no mistakes. I was pretty pleased with that. Everyone hung out for quite a few hours after, and we had a fun night. It was a good way to close out my Glen Helen career.
I had booked my flight to go back to Sydney on April 11th, and was therefore planning on working up through the 10th. One of the staff needed to be in town on the 10th though, so I left a day early and spent my last day in Central Australia hanging out in civilization again. I had McDonalds chicken nuggets for lunch, and even went to the movies! As much as I will miss my new home away from home 135 km west of Alice Springs, it was quite nice to be in civilization again.
I’m writing this from the plane (at least the first draft anyway). We’re probably about 45 minutes outside of Sydney at this point. When I was walking towards the airplane in Alice, seeing the airport for the first time since I stepped off the flight coming up here on January 23rd, I was amazed at how quickly the time flew. I’ve been up here about 11 weeks. It seemed more like 11 days! Time in general is flying by quickly. The month after next, I’ll hit the one year mark away from home.
As this era comes to a close, it’s only fitting to do a recap on the experience. I wish I could recap the era nicely and put it into a concise little paragraph filled with reflections and witty commentary on my time as an outback waitress and bartender, but that would be impossible. Once I got to Australia and the panic attack of oh-my-gosh-what-have-I-done settled and dissipated, I decided that I wanted to have a nice city job in Sydney (which I successfully found at HSBC) and a nice random ass job somewhere a bit more rural somewhere else; the kind of job that I could only do in Australia. I don’t recall exactly what got me thinking about the outback, but it seemed like it would be a cool experience. I vaguely remember stumbling across the Northern Territory’s official website and falling across this video:
I was sold. Lots of emails and plan arrangements later, I stepped off an airplane in Alice Springs to be picked up by one of the owners of Glen Helen Resort, who was nice enough to hire me without any hospitality experience. I don’t know what it was exactly about the place, but I decided that’s where I wanted to be, and I made it work. I changed a bit of the overall plan for my year in Oz to make Glen Helen fit into my schedule, and I can’t say that I have any regrets. Both the job experiences and the personal experiences out there in the middle of nowhere were priceless. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision myself as a bartender at an Australian outback pub, but there I was, the girl from Queens pouring drinks in the Northern Territory. Pretty good stuff!
When I got back from my 2 and a half months of travels in January – that would be Jillaroo school, surf camp, and my tour of New Zealand, for those of you who are a little fuzzy on the details – I couldn’t wait for more. I sort of looked at my time at Glen Helen as somewhat of a means to an end. While I hoped to enjoy the experience of living and working in the outback, I looked at the time up here as a time to make money and relax. I had sleep to catch up on, books to read and dozens of discs of Lost to watch. I planned on lots of journal writing and lots of coke drinking, spending quiet time in my very own room. In the end though, Glen Helen has been the most significant experience of this whole trip thus far, and I can already say with confidence that it’ll remain so, regardless of what comes next. Yes, there is scuba diving to be done, Hobbiton to visit, great white sharks to swim with and many nights ahead of me sleeping in a swag under the stars; but in the end, sometimes the more basic things in life carry much more meaning and have a much greater impact.
What’s next for me? 3 days in Sydney that are going to be filled with lots of yummy asian food and even more not so yummy (but necessary) errands, and then off to New Zealand! Yes, I’ve been there before. But there was so much more to do that I’m going back. I have 10 days of stuff planned for myself before I start touring Australia! After that I fly over to London (and Suzy’s couch) for the Olympics, followed by a quick visit to Paris and a yet-to-be-determined location, and then…Whitestone? My goodness, time flies!
The resort looks so nice! I like seeing you in action as a bartender! ;)
ReplyDeleteI hear Bernstein is looking for a bartender... :)
ReplyDeleteYigal
haha what department is the bartending position available in :-)
ReplyDelete