Working Holiday Visa - the lowdown

I've had a lot of people back in the UK ask me about the Australian working holiday visa, what it is, what kind of work you can do out here, and whether it's worthwhile doing it. The great thing about a working holiday visa is that you can pretty much make your experience in Australia whatever you want it to be and everybody's experience differs slightly depending on where they have lived, worked and travelled during their time in the country.

A working holiday visa allows you to legally live and work in Australia for one year. The main purpose of this visa is to allow you to save and fund your travels further, which is pretty awesome. You can work for any one company for up to 6 months, and once the 6 months is up you have to find work at a different company. Australia is a brilliant country to save in as it has one of the highest minimum wages in the world at $17.70 p/h, but I've never worked a job that paid me less than $20.

The visa is pretty straightforward to obtain so long as you've been well behaved in life and have no criminal convictions that will hinder your application. You can do it yourself from the Australian government website, or if you're like me and leave it until completely the last minute you can pay an additional fee and get a company to do it for you. I bought mine from STA travel, it took 2 weeks to be accepted and cost me less than £250.

Now lets talk jobs. I've done so many jobs since I've been here. I started with temp casual work working a stall selling kids modelling clay at events and festivals, I worked three weeks at a cafe before I quit, I've done bar work, and I've office temped. Although I enjoyed all of my roles for different reasons, office temping has been by far the best. It's decent hours, decent pay, and I've had nothing but positive experiences with every temp assignment I've worked. The people have been helpful and welcoming, it's been great exposure to different office environments across various industries, and I've learnt loads of new skills. I fully recommend it to anybody with any office or administration experience.

Before I came to Australia I met a few people in Asia who had managed to secure roles in the industries that they worked in back home. When I first arrived I was very keen to remain working in media and slogged pretty hard on applications and made a good few phone calls to various places. Whilst I did have some very positive conversations, none of them were willing to take me on whilst I was on a working holiday visa. You have to understand that big companies have to play by the rules, and it doesn't benefit them to take on a new recruit, train them, and only get a good 4 months from them before having to let them go. Now, if you know somebody in Australia that can set you up with a sweet deal, have a lot of contacts and connections, or are willing to accept a sponsorship visa early on into your working holiday visa, then that's great, but the chances are you're not going to be able to work within the same industry that you did at home and you have to be okay with that. I knew I was only going to be here temporarily and so took this opportunity to work casual jobs and enjoy the variety of work I was offered from my agency all whilst keeping in mind my main goal of save save save so that I can get out and explore this big beautiful country.

5 minutes down the road from my place in Melbourne

The two big players for settling down and finding work in are Melbourne and Sydney. When you get here, you'll meet a lot of people that love Sydney but hate Melbourne, or love Melbourne and hate Sydney. I've yet to meet somebody who loves both. They are both amazing cities for different reasons. Melbourne is full of street art, amazing cafes, culture, bars and live music venues tucked in alleyways. The weather is erratic and it can get a lot cooler here. When I arrived in September it was freezing, I had to buy a coat and honestly I felt that I'd made a terrible mistake. Read about my first experiences of Melbourne here. The summer gets hot, hot, hot. It reached 38 degrees on Christmas day. Sydney is full of iconic landmarks (Hello Sydney Opera House and Darling Harbour!), beautiful beaches, amazing swimming pools integrated into the landscape that overlook the ocean, surfers, free barbecues by the beach and overall the weather is much better. Both of them have an abundance of work. You'd have to weigh up the pros and cons after visiting both, and if I could offer one piece of advice it would be to see as much of Australia as possible before settling down in one place, or at least seeing both of these cities before deciding on one. If you're coming straight to Australia then I would really advise coming with a decent amount of funds behind you so that you can take time to decide what you like. I came to Melbourne straight from backpacking South East Asia for 3 and a half months so my funds were low, but if I could go back and change one thing it would be to see both places before deciding on one.

One of the many stunning views from the Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach walk in Sydney 

Now, this post is getting pretty long so I'm going to wrap it up with a short answer. If you want to come and travel, and you want to work somewhere that allows you to extend your travel, or stay in Australia for an extended period of time so that you can see as much of it as possible, then get a working holiday visa. For me, on the whole, it's been an incredible experience. It's been tough at times, it's been challenging, it's been interesting, it's been amazing and wonderful and definitely something that I'll remember for the rest of my life. 

Turbulence

How long do you stick something out for before you give up or decide that you need to try something new? When do you decide that enough is enough? Where do you draw the line? How much are you willing to put up with? These were all the questions that ran through my head and went unanswered for weeks and weeks when I arrived in Australia. Melbourne muddied my fresh expectations of a laid-back, sunny life down under with a cold and windy spring that locals assured me was the longest spell of cold weather they had experienced in years. Not what you want to hear when you've arrived from South East Asia with not much in your backpack but bikinis, denim shorts, crop tops and sandals. My first purchase in Australia was a coat.

It wasn't just the weather. I massively underestimated how difficult it is to land yourself in the midst of a new, foreign environment, completely unprepared, and start a brand new life from scratch. I knew nobody in Melbourne, I had no job interviews or flat viewings lined up, I came straight off a flight from Bangkok after 3 and a half months of trekking through jungles, exploring caves and balmy beaches, meditating, and eating all three meals for less than £5 a day. Financially, Australia is a shock that nobody can quite prepare you for. A $16 salad was a painful reminder that I needed to find a job as soon as possible.

We lived in a hostel for over a month. We moved 4 times in less than 2 months. I had to buy a whole new wardrobe from scratch, only to have $400 worth of clothes stolen. When I wasn't job-hunting, I was flat-hunting, and when I wasn't hunting I was getting deeper into a state of worry and anxiety that made me feel utterly lost. I never expected to feel that way when I was living my dream and pursuing what I had worked and saved for for years. I want to travel. I want to see as much of the world as I possibly can. I didn't want want to give all of that up, so I kept going, I kept trying.

When I read travel blogs and look at travel pages and instagrams, they only focus on the positive aspects, the freeing adventure. Whilst it's true that travel is amazing for the most part, I really feel that it's important for me to share the difficulties because it's such an important part of my story. I can only do it now that I am much happier and more settled so that I can write about my experience with some decent perspective, and not in one angry rant (which is pretty much all I did for a good couple of minutes every time somebody asked me how I was enjoying Australia. Sorry to those that were on the receiving end.) It also shows that dreams don't always turn out the way that you expected or like the picture that you had in your head. Once that shatters, what are you going to do? I came to Australia with all these expectations of what I thought it should be like and of what I wanted it to be like. The reality was completely different. Once I accepted that, I could mould the situation and make it work for me.

Things got better. Everything seemed to come at the same time, I got decent work, we found a nice place and moved in immediately. Summer (finally) came, bringing a 38 degree day over Christmas. I've started saving again, and the gnawing anxiety has subsided. I keep having to remind myself that I won't be here forever, that this is just a temporary situation. It took us so long to settle I'm even more determined to make the most of the remainder of my time in Melbourne, and enjoy everything that this city has to offer <3

Travelling space

Ever since we arrived in Australia I've been craving my own space. Three and a half months of hostel hopping had worn me out and although we will travel Australia later on in the year, our first port of call is to find work, settle and save as much as we can. As soon as the idea of work embedded my thoughts my mind shifted. Hostels didn't seem so appealing. I couldn't wait to find work, find a house share and create my own space to live a new life in. Unfortunately it didn't dawn on me that building a completely new life pretty much from scratch takes time. Searching for all of these things at once alongside the personal admin that comes with them (phone number, bank account, generally becoming a person again) is a lengthy process. In the meantime I had to live in a hostel.

Unlike hostels in South East Asia, the majority of people are here on a working holiday visa and this brings a mix of people who are working and living long-term at the hostel or looking for work and getting settled alongside those who are travelling. This made living at the hostel great fun and a huge pain in equal measures. There were a lot of pros; you make a huge amount of friends, are welcomed into a community of like minded people which gives you a good base network in a new city, you pick up a lot of tips and helpful information from your new friends and also have a lot of fun, cheap nights out. Then there are the cons; sharing a small kitchen and cooking a meal with around 15 other people simultaneously, all of whom are cooking a completely different meal (and there's never any forks), sharing a bedroom with 6 other people all with different routines, when you have to get up at 6am for work the next day (especially on a weekend), not having any room to empty out your bag and just generally not having any space.

When I was backpacking South East Asia, none of these things bothered me. Travelling is about a sense of freedom, being wild and spontaneous, not living by routine but on whim, choosing to do whatever you want whenever you want to. Hostels cultivate the perfect environment for this. However, as soon as you have to work, you want to create a routine that sits alongside it. I wanted stability and comfort. I wanted to empty my bag and hang all of my clothes up. I wanted a space to write and blog with nobody else around. When your time is more limited, you seize it, direct it and make the most of it.

After three weeks we found a short-term lease in an apartment in the C.B.D. As soon as I moved in it was a huge breath of fresh air. I felt so much more relaxed. One of the greatest things about travelling (and about anything really) is that everything is always temporary. You can change anything that you want to, and if something isn't working out I need to remember that in time and with a little work and in time it will change. In another three weeks we need to move again! House-hunting is next on the list!

Grace xo  

Hey Melbourne!

Well, here I am, I made it! All the way over to the other side of the world in one 9 hour overnight flight from Bangkok. We boarded the plane in the humid sticky Bangkok heat and arrived in Melbourne early Wednesday morning, greeted with sunshine and much cooler temperatures, which gradually became colder as the day went on. I had to go out and buy a coat! I'm literally starting from scratch coming from South East Asia with nothing in my bag but flip flops, bikinis, crop tops and vibrant patterned pants. Not an ideal wardrobe for a city in the beginnings of Spring.

The first few days were very full on sorting out Australian phone numbers, bank accounts and tax file numbers. You can't do anything without an Australian phone number, not even open an bank account, so this should be the first thing on your list when you arrive. Since then I've been applying for jobs constantly. At the moment I'm staying in a hostel but I really need to get a flat soon as it works out to be pretty much the same price per week to rent a room in a flat anyway (madness!) It's a little overwhelming thinking of this on top of searching for a job and trying to re-organise all of my stuff right now. One step at a time, I'll get there. I just need to keep telling myself that and not expect everything to come at once. 

Life admin aside, Melbourne is such a cool place. The first day here was such a breath of fresh air, everybody is so friendly and wants to have a chat with you. Obviously there's no language barrier here which helps, of course, but even strangers will want to have a chat and give you tips on where to go. The first evening here we walked around the central business district and I felt so excited and ready, it's a feeling I get when something big is about to happen. The city seemed so alive and welcoming and it is an amazing feeling knowing I have so many new places to explore and more time to do so. On Saturday we checked out Hosier Lane which is full of graffiti, tags and street art. As soon as you turn into it BAM! it's like entering a whole new vibrant world. It's also an instagram lovers dream for good shots! The art changes constantly which I love, there will always be something new to see like a real outdoor public gallery. Art is for everybody to enjoy. Then we ate at a place called Movida Next Door which did very tasty reasonably priced Spanish tapas. The oysters were great and I also tried a dish called Pulpo which is grilled octopus. Melbourne is a foodies dream with so many great places to eat. 

I know it will take a good few weeks to get everything sort sorted and get myself fully settled but I can't wait to make a home here. Melbourne has been voted the most livable city in the world for a past few years and so many aspects of it remind me of my home town Manchester ❤ All I need now is for the weather to warm up. Bring on Summer!