A trip down memory lane: my return to the bear sanctuary in Romania

May 17th, 2013 in Bears Romania by | No Comments

Volunteering at the bear sanctuary in RomaniaBack to the bear sanctuary in Romania: how things have developed over 4 years!

 

In February I returned to the bear sanctuary in Romania for the first time since I was a volunteer there in 2009. I remember leaving the sanctuary back in 2009, after three months as a volunteer there, with an extremely heavy heart. Returning back after four years away was like coming home.

The sanctuary has really developed over the past four years. A new enclosure has sprung up, providing a home to up to thirty more bears. The area has expanded dramatically to enable more people to understand the complexities of animal welfare in Romania (through a visitor centre and an underground bear watching station), as well as to shelter the increasing number of abused bears needing a haven. The bears have great access to running water, trees to climb in, dens to sleep in and undergrowth to hide in. The thrill of seeing the bears playing, chasing each other and watching over the sanctuary from the treetops returned so suddenly, it felt like I had never been away.

Whilst I was a volunteer at the bear sanctuary in Romania, there were two very timid and shy bears in the training pen, Katie and Doro. The training pen is a relatively small enclosure where new bears will start their lives at the sanctuary. It is the place where they learn about space (how it is possible for somewhere to exist that you can roam in properly!), about trees, water, grass and other bears. They start their journey very timidly, and over time they learn to acclimatise and enjoy this new found freedom. Depending on how quickly they can adapt, they are then released into the large forest enclosure, where life is as similar to the wild as it can possibly be. I was privilleged enough to experience Katie and Doro’s whole journey- arriving as scared bears that could just pace one metre along the fence- to seeing them spread their wings, learn to enjoy the space and eventually get rehabilitated into the large enclosure. I was very pleased to see Doro when I was there in February.

Another favourite of mine is Max, the bear that has been cruelly blinded by his previous owners, anxious to stop him escaping. I adopted Max back in 2010, and have constantly been hearing about his progress since. To see him actually hibernating (relatively rare for abused bears!) in February was a real joy.

All in all, my trip back to the bear sanctuary in Romania was a fantastic return down memory lane. The time that I spent there was some of the happiest in my life- good outdoors work next to my favourite animals, what more could I have wanted? And that doesn’t even bring me on to how much I fell in love with Romania.

But that’s for another blog, another day…

Have a look at Oyster Worldwide’s website to find out more about volunteering with bears in Romania, or contact me on anne@oysterworldwide.com

Back to the bear sanctuary in Romania

Farm work in Australia: meet the new faces of Oz’s rural workforce

May 16th, 2013 in Paid work Oz Outback by | No Comments

Farm work in Australia with Oyster WorldwideMeet the new faces of Australia’s rural workforce. These girls have headed out to the Outback to undertake farm work in Australia, and are now part of what is a growing number of international workers helping out in rural Australia.

With the mining boom taking up the time of Australia’s native young, the rural Outback is losing out. However, with farm work in Australia programmes such as Oyster’s, the huge hole for workers is being filled with young, enthusiastic travellers.

Remote farms in the Outback used to be filled with young male Aussies. Now however, stereotypes are changing. Young international men and women  have taken over the jobs once performed by young hardy guys.

Oyster’s workers are, after 2 weeks of preparation and training, getting jobs as farm hands, helping with mustering, sheep shearing, harvesting and much more.  Working with over 1800 farmers across the rural Outback, there is a huge amount of farm work in Australia for well trained travellers. And if you’re worried about not being well trained, Oyster will help you to get there.

And now is the perfect time to get involved. ”Most young people in rural Australia are going to the mines. It’s big money and the old farming industries can’t match it,” one local farmer said. ”If we didn’t have backpackers, it would be even harder to work farms.”

If you are interested in getting involved in farm work in Australia, have a look at our Australia Outback webpage. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a farmer already to make the most of this opportunity. Enthusiasm, motivation and a love of the great outdoors are enough to get you farm work in Australia’s rural wilderness.

 

Roger flies on G-CIVE!

May 15th, 2013 in News by | No Comments

After yesterday’s more serious blog article, today’s is a little more lighthearted. Word of warning though, it’s also a little geeky!

Being a travel company we decided it was important for us to have at least one model airplane in our office. A few months ago we went online and purchased a model British Airways 747, the same plane that a lot of our Canada workers fly on for example.

When the model arrived we realised that it was an actual replica of a British Airways 747, right down to having a real tail number – G-CIVE. Roger and I have a tendency to be a little geeky with planes, so back online we went. We wanted to know where ‘our’ plane was flying to. Every week or so we’d take a quick look at the FlightAware website and see where the plane was.

Over the past few months we have seen that ‘our’ plane has flown all over the world – South Africa, China, India, Canada, the USA – all over the place with seemingly no pattern to the trips.

On Monday evening, Roger flew to Bangkok on his way to visit our Thailand Diving program. As he was flying with BA we joked about how he might actually fly on ‘our’ plane.

Well, when I came in yesterday and checked to see where G-CIVE was, it was flying to Bangkok – the plane that Roger was flying on! Out of all the planes that BA fly, what are the chances?!

As I said at the beginning, this is all pretty geeky, but hopefully a good story nonetheless!

Look, I’ve even pointed out Roger’s seat!


Why you should consider longer term gap year programs

May 14th, 2013 in News by | 1 Comment

There is so much choice now for people planning a gap year. One of the big decisions people need to make is how long they should be away from home for and whether they should spend that time seeing as many different places, experiencing as many different things, and ticking as many different boxes as possible, or, whether it is best to use the time living and immersing themselves into life in a new community. This blog is about why I think longer term gap year programs are best.

At Oyster we offer both. We have a growing number of animal welfare programs that run for 1-2 weeks + that are suitable for adults of all ages and all stages of life. These can easily be done as an alternative to traditional beach holidays in later life.
At the same time we also have the more traditional, longer term gap year programs that last for 3 months or more in countries like Brazil, Canada, Chile, Nepal, Romania and Tanzania to name a few.

In an ideal world, people would travel around the world seeing lots of new sites and combine that with a program where they can live in one country and immerse themselves in a community, living life as a local whilst volunteering on a worthwhile project. Realistically, most people would find this sort of ‘mega gap year’ too expensive. (more…)

No IEC Canada Work Permit? Why not consider Val d’Isere?

May 3rd, 2013 in News by | No Comments


Once again this year the IEC Canada Work Permit has been extremely popular. So much so that applications for a 2013 Work Permit closed in March for British passport holders. Understandably this has left a huge number of people dissapointed.

So, if you cannot go to Canada this year, what is there to do? Well, I’ve just come back from a short research trip in the top European resort of Val d’Isere. I had an incredible time getting to know our new program and meeting the people running it on the ground. Despite it being spring and the end of the season, the snow was still pretty awesome – I can only imagine how great the conditions are on a powder day!

This is a program that Oyster sent a few people on this season (people who missed out on Work Permits in 2012) and next season we are set to send an even larger group.

We have three options in Val d’Isere. Choose from:

  • Instructor  - this gives you 11 weeks ski or snowboard training, taught by the best instructors in town and includes the BASI Level 1 and BASI Level 2 qualifications.
  • Performance – Enjoy the 11 weeks training without the stress and pressure of the BASI assessments
  • Seasonaire – Head to Val with everything organised ahead of time. Have your job, accommodation and ski pass all organised before you even arrive!

With all options there is the chance to earn money working part-time in cleaning jobs, hospitality or nannying.

For costs and more details, check out our new webpage or feel free to email me (jon@oysterworldwide.com) with any questions. Places on these programs are filling fast and, for a limited time only, the prices on our website are last years prices. The prices for Jan 2014 will be released in the next few weeks so make sure you book before the price rise!

Work in Canada for the Winter 2013/14 Season

April 23rd, 2013 in Paid work Canada by | No Comments

Oyster still has places available on all of our Canada programs for people that can organise themselves a Canadian Work Permit for 2013. Although the High Commission in London has filled its places for Brits, there are still plenty of permits available on the International Experience Canada program for citizens of many countries around the world, including Australia, New Zealand and other European countries. Check out the International Experience Canada webpage to see if your country is listed.

Once you have your work permit, Oyster can provide more than just helping you to find work in Canada, we can arrange a guaranteed job, accommodation, full season ski pass and full support for your winter season in Canada. Our prices start from £1895 for 6 months (check out XE.com to get an approximate comparison in your local currency).

For the winter season, we have three fantastic locations on offer: (more…)

Charity Trek in Nepal

April 22nd, 2013 in Trekking by | No Comments

Art therapy in Nepal

Did yesterday’s London Marathon leave you feeling that you would like to do your bit for charity? Well you don’t have to run 26 miles to do it. Instead, why not consider joining Oyster’s special charity trek in Nepal at the end of October 2013? You’ll trek for 7 days in the Himalaya region of Nepal whilst raising money for Art Refuge UK – a charity doing amazing work with Tibetan refugee children.

Our trip lasts 12 days in total and departs from the UK on 31 October 2013. After some acclimatisation in Kathmandu you will set off with the team to trek in the Ghale Gaun region of the Himalayas.  You can either join this trek as an individual, or get together a group of friends to share the challenge with you.

Find out more at our specialist trekking website www.oystertrekking.com or call Jon Arnold direct on 01892 771972

PS: Big WELL DONE to all those who competed in the London Marathon yesterday, raising money for some brilliant causes along the way!

My first trip to China

April 18th, 2013 in Teaching in China by | No Comments

Beijing to Shanghai – 800 miles in under 5 hours

My first trip to China was not what I expected.  I spent two weeks in China in January and was extremely pleasantly surprised.  TV reports of China in the UK are rarely positive – usually you hear of smog, undemocratic Chinese politics and  reports about side effects of the seemingly never ending growth of the Chinese economy. What I found was a modern, confident, friendly, forward looking country with a strong culture and little smog.

I landed at Beijing impressive airport (soon to replaced by a better one with 9 runways) and home to the world’s friendliest immigration staff. The first meal I ate was exquisite Beijing duck – all the food was tasty, plentiful, and inexpensive.  The high point was eating (or rather chewing) a deep fried chicken claw and the low point was discarding the chopsticks for a knife and folk when greed got the better of me.

Another pleasant surprise was the great interest the Chinese have in all things English and learning English – 350 million at any one time.  They say if you can speak English and Mandarin you can communicate with half the world’s population.

This brings me onto why I went.  I wanted to see how feasible it would be to send young people to China to teach English, learn Mandarin and live in China.  I quickly worked out that this would be very attractive option and we are delighted now to have launched two programmes.  China adventure, involves a Beijing based TEFL and language lessons followed by a paid teaching internship.  The second programme, China Teach and Earn, is essentially a job finding service for graduates (that costs you nothing) where you earn a good wage teaching English in return for 6-12 months work.

If this interests you please contact me, Roger Salwey on 01892 771971 and email roger@oysterworldwide.com

Vote Oyster Worldwide in the Responsible Tourism Awards

April 17th, 2013 in News by | No Comments

Vote for Oyster in the Responsible Tourism AwardsOyster Worldwide is asking for your help in the Responsible Tourism Awards 2013.

Here at Oyster we pride ourselves on working responsibly in our volunteering and paid work projects. Responsible Travel runs an annual awards ceremony to promote organisations that work particularly closely with nature, the environment and cultural well-being.

Oyster Worldwide are looking for your help in nominations at the Responsible Tourism Awards 2013. We are being nominated for the work that we do in the wildlife sector. Each year we prepare and send volunteers overseas to help in various animal welfare projects. We have been supporting volunteers on important wildlife preservation and conservation programmes since 2007, with volunteers making a significant change to the livelihood of many of the animals that we work with.

If you have been on an Oyster Worldwide animal welfare project, we ask for you to quickly fill in the wildlife nomination form for the Responsible Tourism Awards 2013. The form is very straight forward and quick to fill in.

The more nominations that we receive, the more volunteers we will be able to send out to help. The projects include working with abused bears, lions, elephants, monkeys and endangered turtles and sea life. These projects can often be life changing, both for the animals and for the volunteers themselves.

If you have any questions about this at all, please do contact Anne on anne@oysterworldwide.com

Thank you in advance for your continued help and support!

Visit Australia and volunteer in Tasmania

April 16th, 2013 in Conservation Australia by | No Comments

Volunteer in TasmaniaTasmania is Australia’s only island state. It is a part of the country often overlooked by travellers, a destination pretty far off the beaten track. Oyster offers the opportunity volunteer in Tasmania  to get to know this tucked away paradise.

Tasmania is in the far north of Australia, and hence has one of the most temperate climates of the country. If you are looking for cooler weather to be working in, we would recommend that you volunteer in Tasmania. The summer temperatures average a comfortable 21 degrees, whilst the winter temperatures tend to sit around 12 degrees.

Over 40% of Tasmania is dedicated to National Parks. Home to fabulous beaches and historic towns and villages, combined with its artistic and cultural heritage, Tasmania is a great option for getting involved in conservation volunteering. Examples of what is going on in Tasmania:

  • Nawrantapu National Park – this beautiful park is located amongst coastal sand dunes along the shores of Bass Strait. The park boasts a high concentration of flora and fauna, with the chance to see wombats and echidnas! Projects typically include maintenance of a wetland area and creek restoration.
  • Musselroe Bay & Tomahawk Conservation Areas. Get involved in vegetation surveys, track  building, maintenace and beach clean ups on this spectacular coastline on the north-eastern edge of Tasmania.
  • ‘Cascade’, South Hobart – this terrific area of bushland at the foothills of Mt Wellington is a big part of Tasmania’s conservation programme. Get involved in  building an extensive walking track and completing a survey of the existing flora and fauna.
  • Launceston is the home to bushland reserves including the iconic Cataract Gorge. Volunteer projects here involve habitat rehabilitation for native birds and wildlife and preservation of areas which have endangered plant species and provide walking tracks for the general public.

For more information about the volunteer in Tasmania and Australia programme have a look at our volunteer in Australia website. You can also contact Anne on anne@oysterworldwide.com if you have any questions at all.

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