Mega Yadnya

Bali-born Mega Yadnya found there were plenty of reasons to settle in the Northern Territory: a good job, good mates, familiar weather, friendliness and lack of traffic jams.

Mega, who has lived in Darwin for three years, is a barista at one of the Territory’s most popular cafes.

His job includes training other staff in how to make the perfect cup of coffee.

“I love working there,” he says. “My bosses are great – they trust me to just get on with the job."

“I like talking to customers and many of them have become my friends.”

He enjoys Darwin’s “hot and wet” seasons because it is similar to the weather to Bali.

Mega – full name I Made Mega Putra Yadnya – came to Australia on a one-year working holiday visa four years ago and worked in a fine dining Sydney restaurant.

“I was freezing all the time in Sydney,” he says. “I thought, ‘I can’t do this’.”

Friends told him that he could extend his visa by another year if he went to work in what was classified as a “remote” part of Australia or on a farm for at least three months.

“I saw that Darwin was on the list of remote places, so I looked at the map and was happy to see it was close to Bali.”

He worked as a kitchen hand in a Waterfront restaurant before getting the barista’s job.

Mega had long dreamed of working overseas, either in Australia or Canada.

He learnt English by talking to tourists while working in a Bali hotel during his hospitality studies at university in Denpasar.