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The Magazine for Working Abroad and Taking a Gap Year
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BACK
ISSUES
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A
Flexible Life
by N M Dyer |
My
husband and I just had to get away from it all just after
we married 4 years ago. So we bought a cheap caravan, awning
and got a few bits and pieces together and just went. At
the time we were house sitting, so it was no pain to get
away from it all.
 We
left with very little money, and decided our first port
of call would be Holland. The drive through Belgium was
a pain, but after a few weeks going around Holland, we decided
to settle near den Haag, in a campsite in the middle of
nowhere, which suited us just great. We had a car, so driving
into Amsterdam was no problem. We just had to remember to
stick to the right hand side, and learning to back a caravan
into a space was a little more tricky, but fun all the same.
Costings are a little sketchy as it was so long ago, and
I've done a thousand more adventurous things since then,
like giving birth to two children. But in general, the campsite
was 100 Guilders a week - obviously the euro will change
this. We had to put a guilder in every morning to have a
shower, and we were a good ten minute walk from the shower
block. Using the loos in the middle of the night was none
too pleasant - but a necessary evil once I fell pregnant.
We sought work in den Haag and Amsterdam, and kept being
told that because we didn't speak Dutch that positions were
limited. We found several companies in Holland that were
purely English speaking, but all recruitment is handled
through agencies, and despite my husbands managerial experience
and my degree, about all we could get was cleaning offices
and toilets, and working in a bread making factory at night.
We earned good money, but we were told that without Dutch
all our skills and qualifications were useless. But we earned
loads, and spent very little, and soon had a yearning for
some English.
Holland was great, in some respects a lot better than England,
but we didn't speak their lingo and they resented speaking
ours.
So we flew to Australia on working holiday visas. We arrived
in Sydney, not knowing where we were going to stay or what
we were going to do. But soon found a hostel in the Central
Business District (70 something Elizabeth Street). It was
basic, and we had to enter into a 6 week contract. But Orm
and Maureen were great. A lovely couple, and Nigel even
got offered a business deal and job by Orm near the end
of our stay with them. But we foolishly turned him down.
Something we'll always regret.
We joined an agency - Choice Personnel Selection in the
CBD, very near us, and soon landed jobs in the Sydney Office
of State Revenue as cashiers (Temporary). For the rest of
our stay we continued to work there. We were netting about
$4000 between us working there a month, after taxes handled
by a company called freespirit. Just before we left Aus
we heard this was being stopped and that travellers would
have to pay more tax. Being pregnant in Aus was great -
the healthcare was brilliant and the midwifes and childbirth
teachers fantastic. I seem to remember my hospital was the
King George V in Sydney. We used to go to a great cafe in
Newtown once a month and then onto my appointment at the
hospital for a monthly and eventually bi-weekly check-up.
With the birth of baby number one imminent we decided to
return home to England - again a decision we'll always regret.
We didn't realise it at the time, but we'd been given the
name of a contact that could have helped us stay there,
but we only found this out after our return to the UK.
Two weeks later I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl weighing
in at a healthy 6 Ib 5 oz. I'm glad we decided to have an
adventure before we had our children - because for some
time your whole life gets put on hold once kids arrive.
But we love them dearly. And never regret having them. |
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