Remember when I moved to a new county, and started a blog so that all of my friends and family (okay, mostly my parents’ friends) could see what adventures I was getting up to? Yeah, me too. After a ten month hiatus, I figured it was time to get back on the writing horse. It’s not that I gave up on writing, or didn’t like it anymore, it’s more that life happens, and I was too busy making memories to stop and reflect on them. But I want to be able to look back at this in 50 years, when I’m old and senile, and remember the good old days in Australia. So, let me catch you up.

It’s September 2021, spring has sprung, and I’m living in North East Victoria, in a little town called Myrtleford. It’s small and rural, set on the beautiful alpine backdrop of Mt Buffalo, and I’m thinking about retiring here. While a lot has changed in the last year, Australia’s management of the pandemic has not, so we go back and forth between mini lockdowns here in Victoria. There have been times when state borders were open, and I could have gone to a different state, but chose to stay. My whole master plan to work and travel during my time here has been thrown off course, but I have high hopes that the travel part of that is in my near future. Let me rephrase, I will be traveling somewhere other than my current location before the end of 2021, because I need a vacation from my vacation.

I moved here in February to start a job at a winery. I’ll write a whole separate post about that, but it was by far my favorite working experience in Australia, and lived up to my every expectation. I knew it was short term work, but I also knew I wanted to stay in this area longer, so I got a new job packing apples. The fruit, not the phone. I’m hoping to continue that for another month or so, and then travel up the east coast. Or west coast. Or the west side of Victoria. Wherever I can go, because I’ve got the itch to travel. That being said, I want to spend more time here, and I hope I’ll be able to live here again, or at the very least visit again.

My other reason for moving here was that I was very unhappy in Bairnsdale, where I’d been since April 2020. I was unhappy with a lot of things, the people, my job, but ultimately I was unhappy with myself. I was upset with who I had become while living there, sacrificing my own time and experiences to do what I thought was right in staying, feeling very stuck in my life. I went through heartbreak and faced what I hope were the lowest times during my stay in Australia. Which isn’t to say that it was all bad; I’m grateful for the experiences I had, the people I met, and the life lessons I learned. Ultimately, I needed to make a change in my life, so the winery opportunity couldn’t have come at a better time.

So now, I’ve lived in Myrtleford for six months, and I’ve made some of my best Australian memories here. Specific moments, but also as a continuous time, this has been overall the highlight of my trip so far (I know trips don’t usually last for multiple years, but I like to leave the illusion that this is temporary). I’m trying to catch you up on what I’ve been up to for the better part of year, and then will try to stay caught up. I’ve found that writing gives me a nice creative outlet, and I hope reading about my Australian adventures can be a fun little escape for some of you. Until next time, xoxo.