What you saw that title and still came to have a read of the diary entry? You’re weird.

So last time we spoke I was about to leave Melbourne and embark on a once in a lifetime journey up the west coast of Australia. Funny how thing’s change isn’t it?

We (me and the cat and mouse) managed to make it to Sydney. Only just though, as on our last day in Melbourne we decided to go to one of our old cultural haunts (aka PJ O’Brien’s) for a farewell beverage. One beverage turned into a couple, into three and then before we knew it we were making a last minute dash to the airport. Luckily we got a taxi driver who offered us a good deal straight to the airport. Unluckily he changed his mind after a couple of minutes. Luckily despite arriving 10 minutes late for the airport shuttle bus it still hadn’t left when we got there. Unluckily it hadn’t left because it was full. Luckily they organised another bus and we made it to the airport. Too easy.

So the plan upon arriving in Sydney was to head to the tax office and claim back a nice lump sum of cash each. The Australian tax year ends at the end of June (it’s July now, to save you looking) and as a backpacker you tend to get nailed in the arse on tax, so we’d all worked out the nice little present we had coming our way - $$$$$$$$$$$!!! Now to be fair, two out of the three of us had made a fairly accurate estimate of the money heading our way, but one of us had got it a little bit off target (think aiming at the bulls-eye and hitting Mars) – can you guess which one of us it was? Can you? Can you? Okay, maybe – MAYBE – as I’d already claimed some tax back earlier in the year under the false pretence that I was leaving Australia, maybe I overestimated slightly. Maybe I was thinking somewhere in the region of $3000. And maybe my actual amount is $160. Not bad eh? It’s a bit like when you were a kid and you think you’re going to get a shiny new bike for Christmas and you actually end up with a chicken shit. (What that never happened to you?)

So there’s no road trip. I’ve very little money. I can’t even afford to leave Sydney. I need a job, I need some money & I need it fast. And as I sit here in my 16th floor central Sydney modern apartment, sipping red wine, caught between watching the TV, watching the fish in the mini-aquarium or playing on the PS2, and wondering at what time I should retire to my double-bed with a balcony view overlooking the centre of one of the world’s most vibrant cities, I’m thinking to myself; ‘does life get much tougher than this?’