Working on the Gold Coast, Australia

It's been a while since our last post, but eventually, everyday life can also settle in abroad, which is the case here on the Gold Coast. After staying with an Australian couple for free from early January until February, who we met at a campsite in Hunter Valley beforehand, we were able to start our job search without stress. Unfortunately, we narrowly missed the high season, making it difficult to find a job. After a very strange trial shift at an Italian restaurant in Broadbeach (the restaurant 'district' - actually, every beach section is its own place), Tom, the lucky one, found a job at a steakhouse where he works around 25-30 hours a week. A week later, I also found a job at another steakhouse. However, here I can only work a maximum of 10 hours per week. In our cases, the wages vary between $22 and $26, specifically, I earn $22 per week and $26 on weekends, and Tom earns $24 every day. Theoretically, it's common to earn a higher hourly wage on the weekend, but we don't know why Tom's restaurant doesn't do that.

In early February, we moved 200m further, closer to the beach, but still in the same area. Now we are staying with friends of the previous couple and have to pay $250 per week for rent. Since there are two of us, it's a fair price, but a friend of ours usually has to pay $200 alone. Furthermore, the current location is perfect – I can walk to work, and Tom can cycle. And we can see the beach from our bedroom window.

Otherwise, life in Australia at the moment is not much different from summer in Germany. We stay inside the house because it's simply too hot outside. The past few weeks have been consistently around 30°C, without exception. The sea is right on our doorstep, but due to the ongoing heat, the water warms up, which attracts the jellyfish.

To still get out of the house occasionally, we visited the Currumbin Rock Pools and Mount Cougal National Park...

... as well as Natural Bridge.

However, the latter was a bit disappointing despite hearing so many good things about it.

Sometimes we also go to a cafe since there are really many unique things in our area. You'll see the photos in the next report 😉

That's it for everyday life in Australia 😁