March in Australia (and half of April because I’ve had no internet)
I can’t believe another month has gone by and that we’re already half way through April as well. March has been my working month. I got a job through an agency doing tree propagation for a tree farm in Kulin. For those of you that don’t know Kulin (and that’ll be most of you) it’s a tiny little town 4 hours out of Perth on the way to Esperance, population 400, main streets 2, no phone signal and pretty much not a lot else going on; apart from bowls competitions, pumpkin competitions and the one that I am actually sad to be missing out on is the Kulin Bush Races which I would have loved to see. Anyway, as far as seasonal work goes, tree propagation is very easy. We had our own little station at a work bench in a warehouse so we were out of the sun. The trees can’t get hot so we had large air-con units – bliss when outside temperatures were in the 30’s and sometimes 40’s. Surprisingly though, Kulin is cooler than Perth. I think I expected it to be warmer being more towards the middle of Aus (that is until you look at the map and realise that Kulin is nowhere near the middle – it’s almost impossible to get my head around how vast Aus actually is). I arrived on a Sunday with two other girls and we were put into a house instead of the hostel which we were pretty excited about. Claire the Scottish girl had her own room and Karin the German girl and I shared one room. It was so nice to have our own space and not be sharing a room with loads of other people. And we had a washing machine that we didn’t have to pay for and that didn’t only run for twenty minutes leaving your clothes still dirty. And I saw my first poisonous snake here, a baby dugite which slithered off into the bush in front of me. I’m not that worried about snakes (I think having grown up in Zim with snakes helped) but dugites are one of the most deadly snakes in the world and the house we were staying in was very old so I’m not embarrassed to say that I did check my bed for the first few nights I was there to make sure I wasn’t sharing my bed with anything too sinister. The bathroom on the other hand was a different story. It used to be an out-house which has since been joined to the house by another room. There was a large hole behind the toilet and I can tell you that nothing else can make you feel more vulnerable in the Australian bush than using a loo that may or may not have a snake waiting in ambush to bite you on the bum. I also had my first encounter with a red-back spider here which merrily wandered across the tray of seedlings I had just picked up. Luckily I was wearing thick gloves and it was only a baby – now a dead baby because Kayleigh squished it.
The tree propagation job was only for 7 days and then we had a break so that the baby trees could grow big and strong. Claire, Karin and I decided to go to Manjimup to do some apple picking because Claire had spoken to the manager of the Manjimup backpackers who had told her that there were plenty of jobs and he could get us work within a couple of days. We were very dubious as managers tell you this sort of thing all the time to get you to come and stay in the hostels, but you never know until you try so off we went to Manji. True to his word, Matt did get us some grape picking work for three days. This was the first grape picking job that I’ve had where we got paid by the bucket rather than the hour so the pressure was on. I still don’t know how many buckets worth I picked but I can’t have been too bad as I made a decent amount of money. We were a sight to behold though as the vines were covered in red dust so we’d come home covered in dust and dirt and fluff (I have no idea what the fluff was or where it came from but it’s still stuck to my clothes now and we have called it grape fluff – i.e. are you going to wear your grape fluff shirt today). After the grape picking job (which was 3 days) there was no more work so Karin and I decided we were going to do tomato picking instead. Well I can honestly say it was the hardest work I have ever done in my life. We were up at 5 to leave at 6 to start work at 7. We worked until 10, had a 15 minute break and then worked until 1ish when we had an hours break. We then worked solidly from 2 until 6 or 6.30. That’s nearly 11 hours – in the sun – bent over double or kneeling on the ground. I have never been in so much agony or felt so tired, tired to my bones, so tired I actually felt sick. When they told us on the second day that we could only work until lunch time because the farmer was spraying the crops, I very nearly cried with relief. I love working backpacker hostels. They are by far the most fun, I think because you’re there for a while and so you get to know everyone and this was definitely a party hostel. During the week was quiet because everyone was tired from a hard days work but the weekends were really fun. I loved it there.
Claire had left and started her new job in Harrismith and there was no work in Manjimup so Karin and I decided to go to Albany instead as we’d heard there was work there. We got to Albany only to be told that they had been desperate for workers the week before but that they didn’t need anyone now. I’d been to Albany before when I did a road trip with the Swiss guy Marc, but this time was very different. The weather had changed and it was grey and wet. We didn’t want that to stop us though so we decided (Karin, another German girl that we met at the hostel, Julia, and I) that we would climb Mount Clarence. When we left it was overcast and grey and by the time we got to the top it was pouring with rain and foggy. Karin and Julia didn’t have rain jackets so we decided to walk round the top of the mountain and head back down to the hostel along one of the mountain paths. We got to the bottom and came out on a road that we didn’t recognise but we all thought we should head down the road and turn right and that would take us back to the hostel. Luckily a postman came by so we asked him for directions. He told us that we needed to go to the bottom of the road and turn left. “Left” we asked him “are you sure?”, and he told us that he was very sure so we turned left and walked and walked and walked … and then we walked some more and walked and walked and walked some more. We were pretty sure that he had given us the wrong directions so we stopped in at an ambulance station and asked for directions there as well. She told us exactly the same thing so we carried on walking until we eventually got to the town – on the other side of where we’d started out. By this point we realised that we must have gotten ourselves completely lost on the mountain. When we looked back we realised that we had come down a completely different mountain from the one we went up on and that we were miles from where we thought we were. We were all slightly freaked out by this because we hadn’t walked down one mountain and then up another so how did we get to that mountain – we still haven’t completely ruled out alien abduction J
We had a fun few days in Albany walking and cycling. The sun came out for a few days and we saw some beautiful places. There was still no work though and I only had $8 left in my Australian account (we still hadn’t been paid for the grapes) so I decided to go back to Perth. Luckily I know a lovely family there who are old family friends and Gilly had very kindly offered for me to go and stay with them so I decided to take them up on the offer. It was only meant to be for a week as the tree farm work was starting up again but while I was here, they asked if I would consider looking after their lovely old dog Shiloh for them while they were away on holiday for the month. What a lovely “job” for me to do. I get to spend time with the dog, in a home all to myself and get paid for it. So of course I agreed but went back to the Plant Farm for a week as Gilly and Bruce were still here.
We were put in the hostel this time which was much nicer as we really got to know all the girls much better and there were such a nice bunch of girls too. They don’t hire guys as the work is too delicate and boys apparently don’t have the patience. Anyway, we were grading trees this time so basically just taking the little trees out and planting them in one tray and likewise for the medium and the big trees. On our first day back the cat caught and killed a dugite and brought it in to us for a present. I was more worried about the cat than anything else so I missed the drama that unfolded but apparently one of the girls was pushing everyone out the way so she could get away and another of the girls jumped up onto the work benches (which are pretty high). Luckily the snake was dead although it did move so must have been in the last throes of death or it was an involuntary twitch. I stayed until the Tuesday and then came back to Perth and Karin stayed until the Thursday and then came and stayed with me at the Dodd’s. She’s left today to go to Alice Springs and Ayres Rock and I’ll be very sad not to be travelling with her anymore but the nice thing about backpacking is that you meet so many lovely people.
Gilly and Bruce have been wonderful and the whole family has made me feel very welcome. There’s a pool here so I can swim when I want and they have given me the use of their very fancy 4x4 which has a camera that switches on when you reverse so that you don’t have to twist around to see what’s behind you. It’s been lovely to drive and it means I can go to Church for a whole month.
I’m hoping to go to Bali for a week in the middle of May as an early birthday present to myself (flights are ridiculously cheap from here) and then I want to head up to Monkey Mia (where you can hand feed wild dolphins on the shore), Ningaloo Reef (where you can swim with the Whale Sharks and dolphins, Broome (where you can ride camels along the beach) and Darwin (where you can avoid being eaten by salt water crocodiles J). I should have enough money now to do that but I might go and work on the mines for a little bit while I’m in the Northern Territory. Work is very hard to come by so I’ll take what I can get when I can get it. But that’s all next months news. I’ll write to everyone again once I’ve finished my month here.
Lots of love to you all and miss you loads
Tricia
PS I will try and upload some photos to my Nomad page for those of you that aren’t on facebook.
