My gap year started as those of most school-leaving teenagers—to Lennox Head. Marlborough students do—a leavers’ trip. A In Lennox I met a bunch of Dutch and week in damp Ireland on a cottage on a Danish people with whom I headed a short dairy farm was certainly a great way to do way back up the coast for a few days in it! Over the summer Byron Bay, doing the usual backpacker months I also made thing of partying hard trips with friends to and using the free public Yorkshire, Norfolk BBQs on the beach. (camping), and Paris. I then stayed a few In mid August I started working as a care nights in Coff’s Harbour, assistant in an aged care and back to my cousin’s in Sydney, before home, in the dementia unit carrying on down the coast to Woollongong. of the building. This was a Here a guy from really great, but challenging, a hostel gave experience—my patience me my first was tested often, and the days were long, surfing lesson, but at the same time very rewarding. I on the amazing worked there until the end of October, and beach there. then after a week’s work in a call centre I Further south I flew out to Australia! visited Bateman’s Bay and then spent a few Various family reunions in Sydney took days in Narooma, which I can honestly say place for a few days, after which I headed is one of the most west, inland, to see my mum. During beautiful places I’ve September she had moved back to seen; the water Australia for health reasons, and was such an Dad joined her at Christmas to incredible blue start a new job in colour, and... it was NSW in the new year. amazing. I met a couple of guys from I spent a week Canberra who had a French-Canadian revisiting old childhood girl “couch-surfing” with them. Instead of haunts, and then travelled following the coast I headed inland to back to Sydney for a week’s Canberra with them and spent a few crazy sight-seeing. A long overnight coach trip to days at their house, which Brisbane, and my next adventure began—a was full of people who didn’t few months backpacking down the eastern live there—we got a coast of Australia. Christmas tree from the side I travelled mostly by buses and coaches, of a road out of town, and had and stayed in backpackers’ hostels, which some great nights out in was great fun—met some really amazing Canberra. From there I went to Melbourne, people from all round the world! I went and stayed with a few family members over from Brisbane to Surfer’s Paradise—full of the Christmas period, with the traditional Aussie Boxing Day of BBQ, beach and watching the test match Bass Strait in a storm (I caught a squid!), cricket. I also explored and someone’s friend landed his plane in Melbourne a bit, before the paddock and took me up for a flight. I taking a coach back up the saw shearing done, got taken horse-riding coast to do the bits I had missed out— in the bush, swam in Hiawatha Falls and stopping in Maffra, Lakes Entrance and made some great friends from the church Merimbula. There were a few random there who took me to Wilson’s Promontary, evenings in hostels involving barbequed up Mt Oberon at sunset. I was also “bugs” (seafood), and sitting on jetties introduced to the intricacies of Bedford watching the stars. From Merimbula I vans, and the travelled a little with a Spanish girl, back to complexities of fixing Woollongong; the hostel I had previously them on the roadside! I stayed in was so good that we went back for really loved my time in a week of surfing, making Victoria, and would say paella, and not getting much it was one of the best points in the year for sleep! I then joined a friend me. back down in Melbourne for In March-April I spent a month staying at some fun over the week of Australia Day, my parents’ house in NSW, and did a few which we spent riding the free City Circle shifts working as a waitress in a motel. tram and celebrating in style. Following this I joined some old family Following this I went back friends a little further west, down to Victoria to start work with whom I worked for 7 at a job I had farmers by the weeks tutoring the 4 home- side of a road, I went to work schooled for a friend of theirs for two children. This months, painting the picket was a challenge for sure, and fence around the house on his sheep farm a very new experience for near Yarram, in South me; the boys needed Gippsland. This was the best preparing for boarding job I have ever had. school, so we covered Somehow, working out in essay writing, most aspects the hot sun was seriously rewarding, and as of GCSE English, and most they all drank copious amounts of tea I of the Maths too. Three wasn’t short of break times. The farmer was weeks were spent working also a fence contractor, so I did work with from Sydney during this time. him building electric fences as well as drafting his sheep and feeding various livestock. I also helped out a few After a brief interval with my other farmers with wiring fences, parents, and with family in marking lambs and pulling out Melbourne, in June I took a ferry trees with tractors. During this to Tasmania and spent a month time I also learnt to ride a there. Compared to my motorbike, got taken fishing on the backpacking earlier in the year, I found the hostels much emptier, and also freezing—the buildings are not designed for winter! Nonetheless I had great fun down the eastern coast, seeing the Bay of Fires and Freycinet National Park, and meeting random fishermen and travellers. I spent a while in the Pickled Frog hostel in Hobart, then some friends came over from the mainland for a long weekend of sightseeing. After a few days’ stay my mum’s old missionary training college in Launceston, I flew back to NSW for my last two weeks in Australia. Since returning to the UK in July I have made trips to Dover, the Isle of Wight, London, St Malo, Leamington, Oxfordshire, Cheltenham and Cambridge, alongside doing some shifts back in the care home I worked in last year. I am now looking forward to university in Bristol, where I will be studying English as an undergraduate. .