Running Out

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After the night spent on a metal picnic table, sleeping under the stars (well, a tourist information center's awning), MC and I finally located our working hostel and spent a good twenty minutes walking there in the ungodly heat, loaded up with our full backpacks. I'm pretty sure we lost around two stone each through sweat on that journey.

It is a matter I will approach (or run away from) if and when it occurs.

After checking in to the Grand, which also runs under the name of the Northside Backpackers, there was a slight shock in the rent for a weeks stay. $160. This is the equivalent to about eighty quid, so not too shabby really. I think it's just that the last three places I've lived during my Australia have been a lot cheaper; $100 per week for the house in Melbourne, $105 for the camp site in Tasmania and free at the Higgins residence! There was also the matter of paying $20 for a key deposit and another $42 deposit....presumably for the room?

To make up for the price of things, the room MC and I are staying in turns out to be quite nice! It's a six bed dorm room so not too many people and the room also includes it's own small kitchen and bathroom, so no more having to share with over a hundred people! It's quite a joy to be able to cook again, even really boring stuff. There hasn't been an attempt at anything slightly fancy yet and nor will there be in the future by the looks of things but still nice not to be living off microwaved potatoes and tinned salmon.

We arrived on Thursday morning and were informed that work started the next morning! Very good news to hear, only our bus would be leaving at 5am. After the previous few days and the lack of sleep involved in those adventures, my head hit the pillow around 9pm that night. I had the best form of a wake up call as well when Kat phoned around 3.30am. This, whilst being a pleasure as ever, enabled me to be awake and alert for the bus journey. The job itself was working on a sweet potato farm.

Starting work around dawn is always fun and seeing the sun rise over the Queensland countryside is fantastic. MC and I were eager to get to work after being out for a few weeks. There were two other guys from the hostel also with us on the farm, although their names escape me for now. One was French and the other was Spanish. The Spanish dude had a very stereotypical name, like Pedro or something.

The work itself was quite fun, compared to the mundane life I had sorting cherries in any case. Me, MC, Frenchie and Pedro would follow behind a tractor as it dug up all the potatoes on this massive field and basically crawl through the mud, making sure there were no rat bites on the acceptable sized potatoes and that the small ones were kept out of the buckets we had to place them into. Once one loooong row was done, another tractor would drive down beside it and we'd empty the dozens and dozens of buckets filled with sweet potatoes into the trailer of empty containers the tractor was pulling. This would then be repeated. The work also involved a few other tasks in the field, nothing more exciting than I just mentioned and it was pretty heavy going. All of us ended the day completely covered in mud as well, head to toe. Here in Bundaberg, the heat by 10am is immense and we were finally told the day would be finished at 11am due to the overwhelming weather.

So five hours work on the first day wasn't too bad, and we got to take quite a few sweet potatoes home with us (which have become our dinner of mash for the past few nights) but in the long term, we need longer hours.

More worryingly is the fact it seems we get shifted between farms each day, depending on the work. Also, over the weekend, MC and I were put on the standby list for work. It seems not a lot of farms open for work on the weekend and pot luck determined who got to work on Saturday and Sunday. If we're not given work for tomorrow (Monday), I'll go to reception and explain that if I am not working, and paid, by Thursday I will not be able to pay the rent for the next week. Nor will I be able to go anywhere else, or eat. I'm not even sure I'll be able to afford the luxury of breathing. My current predicament sees me with all the money I posses in the world sitting in my wallet. A total of $25. This has to feed me until I get paid also. Now, if I'm working consistently for the next few days AND get paid straight away, I should be ok. If not, I'm not entirely sure what is going to happen. It is a matter I will approach (or run away from) if and when it occurs.

Asking the family is really not something that I can allow or want to happen. It is on the good of my Grandad's graces that I am here to start with and if I go groveling to him for money, especially when he's bailed me out so many times in the past, I would feel like a dirty, money sucking leech. However, I may need to result to said leech-ness to at least pay one weeks rent. Once I get paid for the work I will hopefully be doing, this should no longer be an issue as I will then have this mystery of life that seems to elude me; money.

Mike

Current random thoughts:

1. Does Tom Jones have any artistic merit? Would I be mocked for downloading some of his music?

2. It seems I now always feel the urge to have some form of electrical device within my grasp. I blame the DS and Laptop. Not really, I could never be mad at them.

3. How quick to lizards breed?! I was just sitting quietly on the patio of a cafe when one appeared; then two, three.....until five of the buggers were sitting there! I hope no-one had been feeding alcohol to there monsters, otherwise I'd be needing a good paid of golf shoes.