To all my friends and family (and maybe some strangers too?) who keep up to date on these posts every week – I love you and thank you ❤️ it means so much to me knowing that people enjoy reading these, and actually take the time to keep up with the adventures, the mundane, and the reflections.  You’re what keeps me accountable and I appreciate it immensely, because this is a project that means a lot to me.   I realised this week I took basically NO photos or videos – these that you see are literally the only things captured… like I don’t even have random screenshots lol.

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Busy day! Boss texted me late Sunday evening saying I’d be doing my driving test sometime either Monday or Tuesday, only to then text me early morning today saying I’d be going this afternoon at 12pm SO.  Thinking it was going to be doing a partial written/verbal exam, I brought my assignments to the gym and did a quick sesh on the treadmill while I read through my work.  Highly recommend doing this if you ever have projects, assignments, presentations to prep for, or if you want to log in some gym time without really having to think – bring a book!  I used to this at my old apartment gym where I’d bring a book and just walk on incline for like 15-30min; sometimes I’d do this as the full workout, and other times as just a warmup/cardio part of the workout.  This morning was just a 30min treadmill sesh because I had to be back and ready-to-go for Cata since she needed my van for her basic driver’s test (she’s had a whole slew of issues to just be able to take the MR test out here).  I spent the next hour at the mall cafeteria, studying while I waited to get my car back so I could go in to do my test.

The test was LONG and so upsetting because everything was going SO well, we’d been driving for almost 2.5 hours when suddenly the guy had to fail me because of a rolling stop at a stop sign… we literally had only 5minutes left of driving to head back to the yard… but rolling stops are an automatic fail… Was not a great day for emu team because all 4 of us who had tests today, failed for one reason or another LOL. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent wallowing in our failures at the hostel together (hung out with Cata, Pablo, Pia and Ash), getting last week’s blog written + posted, and watching some Criminal Minds (I’ve got 12 seasons to get through, so it’s gonna be a while).

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Tuesday was nothing too exciting – leg day at the gym, and then re-took the driving test (which I passed!!).  Pablo and I went to the MVR to get our new licences sorted; tried to get our H-endorsement to allow for driving passengers, but sadly our police check still haven’t arrived, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer to take that test.  Rest of the day was spent just taking it easy at the hostel.

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Wednesday was such a good day!  Nothing overly exciting in terms of exploration or events, but just overall felt really good and productive.  Started the day with a nice, long, hot shower, while blasting a fun 2010’s throwback playlist I found on Spotify (you’re welcome) and washing my hair for the first time in almost 2 weeks; had a half day at uni and spent the day getting some personal projects and work assignments completed; got a SUPER lovely package in the mail (which I’ll explain further in a moment); fell into a nice 1.5hour long nap while I was in the middle of researching new cameras; and worked on a little video to post.

Now, this package was probably one of (if not THE) highlight of this whole week… I have a penpal!  It’s probably one of the sweetest, and most wholesome interactions I’ve ever had with someone.  Last month I ended up connecting with a bunch of the other Sea Shepherd Media Volunteers on social media after we had our first zoom meeting/introduction, and one of the volunteers and I (Nathan) have just clicked really well! Been chatting lots, have connected on a lot of similar things, and just seem to be on a very similar wavelength to one another.  Somehow, one of our conversations lead to him offering to mail me a book he thinks I’d really like/connect with, which lead me to thinking about a book I had read in my first month in Australia that I wanted to share with him, which lead to me half joking about how fun it would be to be “Penpals” – and the enthusiastic reaction I got was all I needed! So! Here we are with the first exchange – got a beautiful photography/poetry book written by a friend of his, a shell, and some of my photos printed out.  It’s such a fun way to interact with pretty much a complete stranger, and highly recommend!

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Thursday I had to go into work at 8am to cover some fatigue management stuff with the driving instructor; tried to get h-endorsement stuff completed but there’s still more delays on my police check… hopefully should be here next week??? Maybe???  I spent the rest of the afternoon reaching out to the brands I mentioned in my first 'Impact' blog post from earlier this week: How and What You Buy Matters.  The evening I finally put together an application to ‘We Are Explorers,’ an adventure blog who is looking for a Content Editor!  The job is fully remote, which would be SO ideal for once I’m finished my VISA hours and back on the road again.  This is kind of the ultimate dream job at this point in my life – getting paid to adventure, write, and edit photos + blogs, all from the comfort of my van, anywhere I go?! What more could I ask for?  Fingers crossed I hear back about an interview.

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Friday I woke up feeling irritable and anti-social… Always a fun mood to be in lol.  I had a really good chat with my counsellor at 730am, and still managed to get a lot done during the day, despite the shitty mood and attitude lol.  Helped Jono move into Takk’s place, picked up swags from Cata’s to bring back to work, tried to run some errands but ended up spending more time in the parking lots trying to convince myself to go into the stores than I did actually in the stores… so made the call to head home for the rest of the afternoon and be a little potato in the van.  I took some time to just mindlessly scroll, created a little video, watched some criminal minds, and made myself a big batch of pasta for dinner.  I definitely spent too much screen time today and ended up with a pretty bad headache, so I played some guitar before going to bed to kind of help break up the activities going on in my brain.  Guitar, even just for a few minutes, has this way of just calming my brain and kind of resets it – allowing me to go to bed in a better state.

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Saturday turned out to be a pretty good day.  I was still feeling pretty antisocial for most of the day, but had plans with the crew to do dinner + a Black Mirror screening at Takk + Jono’s (will be referring to their place as TJ’s from now on lol), so had to do some hyping up to convince myself to go out.  I spent the morning filling out an application for a 2-week remote clean-up campaign with Sea Shepherd happening beginning of October (they only take 10 volunteers, so really hoping I get it!), and doing a quick/very much needed yoga sesh in the sun, and got myself ready to go out!  Was really nice to hang out with the group. Ended up being myself, Jono, Takk, Pablo, Cata, and Gianfranco.  We got Jono’s projector all set up and watched an episode, went for walk to the grocery store to get some shared snacks, and watched a couple of the new episodes.  There was a Tour Guide pub night organized amongst all the different touring companies, so we ended up deciding to head into town for the evening to hang out with the others, go dancing, and play some pool!  Was a pretty late night for us, and Gian + I ended up stopping for a good midnight pizza on the walk back to the hostel.

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Sunday was mostly just a sleep in day, feeling checked out, and prepping for commentary at work the next day. Couple fun things came up though regarding some podcast and video/photo/music collaborations with a couple different people from my past – so keep an eye out for updates on that!

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Big thank you for your patience with this week ❤️ been feeling a lot of emotions the past few days, so it’s been a struggle getting through and completing this one (the heavy rain and gray clouds since Sunday has not been helping either).  But I did it, and that’s what matters.  Consistency isn’t about perfection, it’s about putting in whatever level of work you can, and getting it out there; because 10% is still better than 0% effort.

See you all next week – and remember…

Stay passionate and curious,
Hunter💛

PS. I’m okay!  There’s just been some conflicting feelings surrounding decisions I’ve made and where I’m at right now, which has been keeping my brain overly stimulated and stressed and confused. I’ll share more next week once I’ve given myself more time to sit with and process how I actually want to move forward, and better understand what I’m going to share.