The Extreme Co$t of Everything

Australia is a country of extremes and driving is no different.  I purchased a 1996 Suzuki Cino for a modest $1,200 last September.  I thought it would be a cheap and efficient way of getting around the country.  Problems arose from the beginning. To register the car in my name without a New South Wales license, I had to ask my boss, who I had only known for two weeks to sign a statement vouching he had known me for over a year and I had a good character.  When I registered, I lied about the sale price to save money on sales tax and ended up paying about $50 for the new title.  I thought I was in the clear but more problems arose within the first few weeks. 

Speed cameras are everywhere in Australia and it seems like they have replaced highway police with technology. I got my first speeding ticket outside the town of Berry my first week of driving.  It was a $105 fine for driving 63km in a 50km zone.  What frustrated me was the speed limit for the road changes from 100km to 50km right outside of town with little warning.  I was leaving Berry, heading south, speeding up to the 100km sigh, but apparently the speed camera caught me from behind. I was not too worried though, I paid the fine and chalked it up to an Australian learning experience. 

Australia is also full of toll roads.  I did not register my car for the toll roads until I moved to Sydney.  Before I did my mailbox was littered with several toll notices that arrived well after the due date, saddling me with extra charges.  The first toll was from my Labour Day weekend trip to Melbourne. I arrived home in Nowra and found a $22.80 fine in my post box.  Included in that fine was $11.30 in tolls and a $11.50 administration charge.  I should have known better and pre-registered with Melbourne’s tolls, City Link, but I was not planning to go back to Victoria so I did not bother. 

One month later I was caught by the Barry Speed camera again.  And again I was going 63km in the 50km zone leaving town to the south.  I was furious.  I think that the NSW government had set up this area on the highway on purpose.  It was straight, flat, and very easy to speed up to the 100km sign.  I paid my $105 fine only because I knew that I had to re-register the car in January. 

Nothing I had experienced in driving in Australia compared to the time when we first arrived in Sydney.  Every freeway and tunnel in Sydney is a toll road: The Harbour Bridge, the Harbor Tunnel, the Cross City Tunnel, the Eastern Distributor, the M1, the M4, and the list goes on and on.  The first week in Sydney Emily and I had several interviews all across town and we just drove where we needed to the fastest way possible.  Compounding the problem was the fact that I charged addresses and was not getting  toll notices sent to where we were living.  I was going to get an E-tag set up, but it required a $40 deposit and $40 initial credit, and we were struggling to keep up with all of the other moving expenses, so I kept on putting it off.  All the charges started adding up quickly.  Sydney tolls are not cheap. The Harbour Bridge is $3 southbound, $4 during peak times, and a $5 administration charge.  The Cross City Tunnel is $4.77, with a $10 administration charge.  I received at least a half dozen of these notices in the mail totaling at least $60.  The worse was still yet to come.  I drove to my job in North Sydney on my first day, arriving around 6:30am.  There is no parking provides in the construction site and only metered parking for many blocks around.  All the meters in the street of the site had a two hour limit.  I drove three blocks up and found parking with a 8 hour limit.  I paid $20 for 8 hours with my credit card at 6:45am and went to work.  I returned around 3pm to pay for my parking again and found a ticket for $99 in my window!!  The parking rangers must have just been by as there was only a 15 minute period that I did not pay for.  I worked until 5pm, so I just left the car there with the ticket under the wiper blade, hoping it would not be towed, and it was not.  There is a parking garage next door to our work site with early bird all day parking for $26, and now it seemed like a bargain for the hassle of my first day.  A few months later I drove to work for some reason I can’t remember and parked several blocks away in a non-metered two hour zone.  When I returned to the car, sure enough I had another ticket.  Maybe I am just so used to small towns but paying for parking makes me sick.  Luckily the North Sydney train station is a 7 minute walk from my work so I will always take the train. 

When Emily and I lived in Elizabeth Bay we were subleasing and a car parking spot was not available.  The street we lived on, Roslyn Gardens was a non-metered one hour parking zone.  Residents can have Sydney council parking permits for $50, but the problem was out lease was only a sub-lease, and the minimum period for a parking permit was 6 months.  Many times I freaked out about parking on out street, worried about fines but for some reason we never were checked.  I saw many parking rangers only a few blocks away, but I guess our street was always so quiet, they never checked. 

It was only a coincidence that out Elizabeth Bay sublease expired one day before my car registration was due.  When a car is registered in NSW, the entire year of liability insurance must be pre-paid and a vehicle inspection is required.  The inspection was no problem. I paid $50 for a mechanic near my work to check things over, and he gave me the required “pink” slip.  Next up was the “green” slip.  The green slip was from an insurance company certifying that I paid the entire year up front.  There are only four companies in NSW that do car insurance to there is not much competition.  The average price for one year’s insurance was around $700 give or take $20, so I was stuck with forking over a lot of money with not much of a choice.  The final step for car registration was to pay the yearly registration, which was an even $250.  The total car registration amounted to just under $1000, about the same as I paid for the entire car!  If I let the registration lapse, I would have to have the car comprehensively inspected and get re-certified with a “blue” slip.  The blue slips were very hard to pass with an older car, with things like a cracked headlight being problems.  Fines for an unregistered car on any road are $550 and every time I would drive past a speed camera I would be incurring that fine.

Australia loves to keep a big brother presence over everyone in my opinion   The amount of certifications for any job is mind boggling and driver’s licences are no exception.  When a learner driver is driving a car they have a giant ‘L’ magnet on the car. When teenagers are driving, the  are required to have a green or red ‘P’ affixed to the car.  An Australian who starts driving at 16 will not likely get their full licence until they are at least 21 or 22 years old.  When I started my construction work in Melbourne I had to take a one day construction induction class to be allowed on any job site.  The class cost $150 and all we did was watch silly youtube videos.  Wages are much higher in Australia to compensate for all of the certifications.  My first construction labouting job I was paid $21 an hour.  I make $24 an hour at my current job, but I am supposed to have 33%of my wages withheld for taxes because I am a non resident.  Australia also has compulsory retirement savings,called superannuation,where 9% of my wages are withheld from my checks and deposited into a mutual fund type account.  I really like the idea of superannuation,but its not practical in my case. I am a backpacker and need as much cash as possible.  I had two more speeding tickets on Easter weekend totaling $210, so I need money ASAP! I was wondering why everyone on Easter weekend was driving like grandmothers, double demerit points applied to NSW licence holders.  I was allegedly docked 4 points for my driving that weekend, which I considered very normal.  Don't get me wrong, Australia is an awesome country and I want to spend more time here, but man, they sure make it difficult.  

The Sound of Settling

After four months and countless places to live, Emily and I have finally found a place to call home in Sydney.  We subleased in Elizabeth Bay for two months ending January 29^th.  We spent the entire month of February homeless.  We had a sublease in Kings Cross for five days directly after we left Elizabeth Bay. We rented from Emily’s friend for two weeks after that in Maroubra, then spent around 10 days living in hotels and lodges before finally getting approved for a very nice apartment in Darling Point. 

 Inner Sydney must have one of the hardest real estate markets in the world.  We started looking for a place in the middle of January.  The first place we picked out was in Elizabeth Bay in the building next to us. It was a perfect location and price, but the owner wanted us to lease right away, abut we had already paid for the last two weeks where we were.  Not wanting to pay for two places at once, the decision was pretty much made up for us.  The same week we were due to leave Elizabeth Bay my car registration was due, and that had to be taken care of (more on that later).  I work every Saturday morning, making it almost impossible to make the scheduled inspection times for open flats.  When we called agents to look at specific places we were always given the run around and told to just show up at the scheduled inspection time.  On one rare day off I walked to a real estate office to request an inspection in person, when I called, they always said that they were too busy.  I walked to the office and approached the guy in the doorway who was not actually working there, but just watching over the door, smoking at the same time.  When the agents finally showed up, I tried unsuccessfully to convince them that I could leave my passport and take the keys to look at a place 10 minutes’ walk from the office.  One agent finally agreed to show me but the problem of finding the keys was still at large.  The keys were never found.  The agent’s excuse was because it was the first day back from a long weekend, another agent who had the Saturday inspection did not have time to return the keys to the office so he could leave for his holiday early.  He suggested that I left $400 with him to hold the property for a week until I could look at it.  I was not about to fork any money to anyone in that office.  

After this Emily and I decided to never look at properties that were offered by that company, but everywhere we looked, the best places were managed by this dodgy company!  When we did make an inspection, an average of 10 other people were waiting with us to see any given property.  The real estate agents were almost always late, never answered their phone, and were rude.  Agents never showed features of apartments, they just unlocked the door, asked for a phone number and email, and made it looked like it was a painful experience to deal with the public.  I don’t know much about dealing with apartments in the US, but I would expect that there is at least some customer service, even if someone will not be taking a place.  

On February 16^th, we did finally find a place offered by an owner, but he turned us down the day we were going to move in for reasons that we will never know.  We had to book a hotel that night and subsequently stayed in hotels for the next several days. We changed hotels every three days because of rate changes, bookings, ect.  We even spent a weekend 20km out of Sydney in Parramatta during the Sydney Marti Gras, a massive LGBT gathering that made logging prices skyrocket.  We had strict guidelines for a place: Near transport, bathtub, light, airy, and not danky and old like our old place.  Not too much to ask for.  The problem with many places in the city is that price for a crappy moldy studio would be the same as a two bedroom house in the suburbs.  One inspection Emily went to had people bidding against themselves, with the apartment finally going for $485 a week.  

We finally decided on a beautiful place in Darling Point, close to where we lived before.  As we had to do with many properties before, we submitted an application which took about two hours, involving everything from work contacts to character references.  We had applied for about seven places before, but had not been approved before.  I had to pester the agent before he processed out application and we were quickly approved.  The place is a beautiful large one bedroom apartment with huge windows overlooking Double Bay. The carpet is a bit old, but that is likely why the price was lower than other units in the building.  

We moved in as quickly as we could on a Wednesday.  Emily had found a perfectly good bed in the street near her work that we put in right away, spending only one night on an air mattress.  Because I have been working so much, I left all the decorating up to Emily and she has done an amazing job.  She found all of the furniture off of Gumtree, Australia’s Craig’s List.  She found a free dining table, $10 for 4 dining chairs, $200 flat screen TV and entertainment center, $80 sofa bed, and everything we could possibly need for a kitchen for about $80.  She has gone above and beyond my expectations outfitting out place I am now proud to call home.  It’s so nice to finally have a place where we can relax and not worry about rebooking anything and we don’t have to clean up if we don’t feel like it. My mom is visiting in about two months and I can’t wait for her to see it.  Things are not slowing down for us as we are leaving for Byron Bay this Easter weekend for the annual blues festival.  

Rain City

The weather has taken a turn to the wet this week. After a sweltering January we have had floods this past week.  Last weekend was a long weekend, Australia Day, but the weather did not cooperate, raining on all day Sunday and Monday, totaling 130 mm in some parts of the city in 24 hours. Bundaburg and Brisbane in Queensland had major flooding that weekend too.  Today it has rained all day too. I spent the morning at work help clean out the flooded basement. It feels like Auckland all over again with the wet weather. We have moved from out old apartment and and the weather has not helped us. Maybe the global climate change has made Sydney a wet climate.

Big Day Out

One week ago last Friday I took the day off and Emily and I went to Big Day Out, a massive concert at Sydney's Olympic park featuring over 50 bands and brutal heat. The weather leading up to the event was seasonable but on the day of the show, the tempiture pushed to record levels. The high for January 18th was 46°C (114.8°F). This was the hottest day ever in Sydney. We arrived around noon and the mercury was already over 35°  We ordered frozen mixed drinks only to watch them melt in front of out eyes.  We wondered around several venues and finally chose the wrong one: a concrete bowl with local bands playing. The music was great, but there was no shade and we did not want to venture out to the most pit where water was spraying the concert goers.  We later took up shelter in the main stadium where many bands were playing but we were so miserable we don't remember much from acts like Band of Horses, Vampire Weekend and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  We soon discovered that a strong breaze was being blocked by the stadium and it was at least 10° hotter inside than outside. Water was also hard to come by. The drinking water taps were located very far from the stadium and bottled water inside was $4.50.  This should be a crime when it was so hot. We did recover nicely to take stadium seats to see the two headline acts, The Killers and The Red Hot Chill Peppers. When the killers started their set with "Mr. Brightside," the entire arena awoke from a sun-induced funk and the ground was awash with people rushing in like ants to get close to the stage. The show was awesome from that point. When we left we encountered more trouble when the Sydney Olympic Park train platforms were super overcrowded and I was very worried that someone would get trampled when the train arrived. Of course the train was 10 minutes late and it was not air conditioned. I got separated from Emily when we boarded and I was stuck on the lower level of the double deck standing with my head lilted because of the low roof. For some reason the train which was supposed to be a direct service to Central station turned into a local inner-west train, stopping at every stop to the city. A 20 minute train turned into a 45 minute cookie oven. Everyone on board looked like they were just through a war zone with many blank stares. We did finally arrive in Central safe and sound and I had time to reflect on my first large concert: It would have been totally different if it was not as hot, so I am willing to try it again. 

Its Heating Up in Sydney

Today's high was 28° C (82°F), tomorrow it will be 30°C(86°F),and Friday it will be 38°C(100°F).  Last Tuesday the high was 40°C(102°F).  I work outside and I fell every degree of the heat no matter the scale.  I have been doing traffic control outside a construction site in North Sydney since the first week in November.  I stand outside and direct traffic entering and exiting out site.  I also wave through traffic, through.  It's a pretty boring job but the pay is good and up until last Tuesday the weather was fantastic.  I learned that most union construction sites in Australia shut down after the temp reaches 40° and I learned that we are definitely not a union site, as work continued as normal.  Australia is known for oppressive heat, but at least Sydney is cooled by ocean breezes.  We also started a boot camp workout in the evenings which is fun, but definitely not cool. To add to the heat misery we have been notified that we need to find a new place to live by January 29th, and I need to sort out car registration by January 30th.  If the heat and stress get too bad, I will just have to jump in one of Sydney's amazing beaches and think abut swimming away...

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!  We will be heading to Port Stephen's for Christmas tomorrow for a few days. Port Stephens is 2.5 hours north of Sydney. We will be in back for Boxing Day  and New Years eve in Sydney, which is supposed to be great. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas

The banners around Sydney say Happy Christmas and I will try to be only happy and will definitely not be merry this Christmas after having our apartment broken into.  We live on the bottom level and I was naive to leave the window in the lounge room cracked for fresh air.  While we seeped someone came into our place and took both of our computers, my ipod Emily's bank card, her prised bag, sunglasses, a gift card, my credit card and some new shoe inserts. Yes someone took shoe inserts. So now one week before Christmas we have to deal with this. Someone took their time. They thumbed through Emily's purse, my backpack and my wallet and selected things to take. They then placed my wallet back inside my shorts pocket. They took time to take the computer charger cord for Emily's computer.  Things are not any value to anyone else, the computers are over two years old and likely worthless at a pawn shop. This all happened as we slept. We have a fan running on out room and did not hear a thing. Needless to say this is very disturbing.  We will go away to Port Stephens for Christmas and get away from this gritty, grimy city.  Hopefully our stuff will still be there when we return.