This article is from page 13 of the 2012-12-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 13 JPG
WHEN Marie McNamara went to Australia in 2008, it was with a sense of adventure.
At home, she found herself in a job that just wasn’t the right fit for her, she had always wanted to travel and had heard stories from her brother and friends who had spent a year travelling around Asia and Australia.
It was a now-or-never attitude that saw her fill her backpack and travel around Asia for three months before finding herself in Australia.
This was to begin an adventure that would take no longer than a year, then she would be back home in Ballynacally.
Four years on and the reality she left behind in 2008 has changed sig- nificantly.
Now Marie is working full-time in Australia, something she knows would not be possible if she returns home.
She is therefore home for three weeks at Christmas to visit family and friends rather than returning, as she would wish, for good.
“You are really doing the same thing over there as you would be doing here, it’s just that the weather is better. You get into a routine and a way of living,” she said.
“Everyone thinks the grass is greener but we are living away from all our family and friends.”
Marie said that she hopes to come home some day as “home is home” but for now “the country is in a mess and I know if I stayed, there would be no work here. I have to be practical and go back to Australia where the work is. There is nothing for me to come back to now. It would be great to stay home but I have to be practical.”
The Clare native has had a number of various jobs since she arrived Down Under. She worked for six months in an office and then travelled around the country.
As with most backpackers, she then ran out of money but decided she would stay for another year.
To be allowed to stay in the country for a second year, she was obliged to spend it working in rural Australia.
So she ended up weeding, sorting tomatoes and potatoes and doing general agricultural work on a farm.
“It was great craic. There was no pressure and you met a load of people. You experience a different side of Australia that you would not see otherwise,” she said.
After her time on the farm, she came back to Sydney and was sponsored to stay in the country working with the company she had worked with previously.
She is now home for a three-week holiday, her third Christmas trip home in a row.
“The first Christmas in Australia was great craic, having Christmas on the beach and watching the fireworks on Sydney Bridge on New Year’s Eve. By the second Christmas, the novelty has worn off,” she told The Clare People .
“To sit beside an open fire for Christmas – there is nothing like it.”