Road trip - Blue mountains to Jervis bay

June 04, 2014 / Annie Chambers

After the bank holiday weekend in the blue mountains the busking began to calm down a little and so we took a little time to explore the area. Timo managed to complete a 10km walk through the mountain paths, which for anyone who has a 3 year old will know, is equivalent to climbing Everest. Here are a few more pictures from our last days in the blue mountains before my cousin Robin joined us for a road trip.

Autumn leaves

My Little mountaineer....

We set off up the hawkesbury river and on to Ana bay in Port Stephens. The area was beautiful and we stayed a few nights in one of the nicest and most exotic hostels I've ever stayed in with little wooden beach huts in the jungle. We put Robins 4x4 to the test on the sand dunes (it got stuck-much to his embarrassment). Then we headed down the coast, through Sydney towards Jervis bay, supposedly the worlds whitest sands. As we arrived on the postcard perfect beach there were ever two dolphins swimming by to complete the picture. It was difficult to leave but we were running out of time before our flight to Borneo and had a long drive back to Melbourne ahead of us.

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The Blue mountains - A buskers paradise….

May 13, 2014 / Annie Chambers

After paying our train tickets to Katoomba from Melbourne and the first night in the hostel we were only able to scrape together enough change to share a portion of chips for dinner that night. (of-course we could have found a cash point but that would have been cheating)

But gentle harp music drifting over spectacular views on a beautiful morning certainly paid well the following day.

The lookout point over The Three Sisters is a true buskers paradise! Living as a full-time musician and busker can be challenging at times and it does´t take many bad days or a week of bad weather to begin to question if you´re doing the right thing with you life and if you can live with this amount of insecurity and inconsistency, especially supporting a child too. But days like today, when you´re the other side of the world in a beautiful place making good money and delighting a whole new unsuspecting audience, I realize again how nothing compares to being able to do what I love to do and the freedom that my life-style provides.

For any buskers who want to try it here I´d advise playing on the lower balcony where you´re hidden from the information centre as I´ve been told by just about ever musician in town that they move on everyone who tries to busk here so I´m just hoping I´ll get away with it for a few more days before we move on...

Here´s a little video of my last few days busking here.

Video by Javi Gil

Meanwhile Javi has been taking advantage of those under the influence of alcohol and busking the night shift with his fire diabolo:)

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Busking the other side of the world...

April 19, 2014 / Annie Chambers

After years of busking around Europe I´ve finally ventured a little further and am spending the winter in warmer climates.

This is the first time I´ve ever written a blog. Anyone who knows me will know it´s against my nature to be writing my personal life on a page for everyone to see but it´s been one of my biggest regrets since leaving England over 10 years ago to have never kept any record of my travels, my experiences, my memories or even photos. For those that don´t know me or don´t know me well... I´m Annie, I´m 29 years old from England, I play the harp and have a 3 and a half year old son Timo. I´ve spent my last 10 years living in Europe, the last 9 of which I have made my living exclusively from music; mostly busking. Other than music my other biggest passion is to travel. I´ve spent most of my time between Ireland and France these past few years but have also spent many months in Slovenia, Croatia, Spain and Czech Republic and shorter visits to many other place… Since having Timo I haven´t slowed down as much as I should have. I was busking an hour before going into hospital to give birth to him, he had his first flight at 3 month, was inner-railing around europe by 6 months. He´s now been to 12 countries, has taken over 60 flights and about half as many ferries, lived with 27 housemates of which 12 were au-pairs and stayed in more houses and youth hostels than I can count.

Right now we are in australia joined by my Spanish boyfriend, Javi, who has been motivating me to make a website and start a blog. As he´s a photographer and film maker, it will make this job a whole lot easier and more aesthetically pleasing so I hope you enjoy.

We´ve spent a few weeks here in Melbourne and a few more traveling in New Zealand. Now we´re back in Australia and going ´on tour´ with the hope of paying our trip each day through busking on the streets.

This photo of me and Timo was taken in Box hill, a predominantly Chinese neighbourhood of Melbourne which has been our base over the last few weeks.

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