We earned it through the grape vine
Well, technically that title is incorrect but it's the best I can think of.
We arrived at the grape farm last Thursday, just a couple of hours after leaving Alice Springs. We were left to settle in and have a look round the accommodation and can safely say that it's the dirtiest place we've ever seen. The room was quite dirty but the kitchen and the bathrooms were shocking, beyond even student standards.
The two mouse skeletons in one of the freezers might give a clue as to when the place was last cleaned.
So, not a good start. We considered just leaving there and then but thought we should stick it out for a day or two to see how the work was and meet the people. We have all our own stuff so didn't need to use their kitchen for anything but the stove tops, and the bathrooms would just have to be endured. It turned out Charlotte was the only girl working there so we claimed the ladies bathroom for ourselves.
The following day it was off to work. It was crap - frustrating and slow. We were getting up just before the sun rose and working 11 hours until the sun went down, and all for peanuts. We worked out that we were earning the equivalent of 2 pounds an hour. At that rate, we'd have been able to afford our tickets home sometime in 2032. Paper boys would laugh at our pay packets.
After three days we ran for the hills.
The only good thing we got out of it was that there were a bunch of blokes there up from Melbourne. They were a mixture of Kiwis and Tongans and each one of them was built like a tank, despite being about 19 years old. On our last night we all went to the pub (10 miles away) and had a great laugh with them and a couple of other people who had not long been working there.
So we headed north in search of warmer weather and better work. We stopped at a great little campsite called Banka Banka station and nearly managed to find work there, first on a cattle station and then working with a group of blokes who were cutting the grass along the edge of the highway. It seemed like it would have been pretty good and certainly different since they basically move about 30ks a day and then camp in the bush each night for several weeks at a time.
But, they were only looking for one person and despite their efforts weren't allowed to take us both on.
So now we're in Katherine again. We stopped at Mataranka last night and revisited the thermal pools this morning, and are about to raid the job agencies here in Katherine.
And that's our story so far.
We arrived at the grape farm last Thursday, just a couple of hours after leaving Alice Springs. We were left to settle in and have a look round the accommodation and can safely say that it's the dirtiest place we've ever seen. The room was quite dirty but the kitchen and the bathrooms were shocking, beyond even student standards.
The two mouse skeletons in one of the freezers might give a clue as to when the place was last cleaned.
So, not a good start. We considered just leaving there and then but thought we should stick it out for a day or two to see how the work was and meet the people. We have all our own stuff so didn't need to use their kitchen for anything but the stove tops, and the bathrooms would just have to be endured. It turned out Charlotte was the only girl working there so we claimed the ladies bathroom for ourselves.
The following day it was off to work. It was crap - frustrating and slow. We were getting up just before the sun rose and working 11 hours until the sun went down, and all for peanuts. We worked out that we were earning the equivalent of 2 pounds an hour. At that rate, we'd have been able to afford our tickets home sometime in 2032. Paper boys would laugh at our pay packets.
After three days we ran for the hills.
The only good thing we got out of it was that there were a bunch of blokes there up from Melbourne. They were a mixture of Kiwis and Tongans and each one of them was built like a tank, despite being about 19 years old. On our last night we all went to the pub (10 miles away) and had a great laugh with them and a couple of other people who had not long been working there.
So we headed north in search of warmer weather and better work. We stopped at a great little campsite called Banka Banka station and nearly managed to find work there, first on a cattle station and then working with a group of blokes who were cutting the grass along the edge of the highway. It seemed like it would have been pretty good and certainly different since they basically move about 30ks a day and then camp in the bush each night for several weeks at a time.
But, they were only looking for one person and despite their efforts weren't allowed to take us both on.
So now we're in Katherine again. We stopped at Mataranka last night and revisited the thermal pools this morning, and are about to raid the job agencies here in Katherine.
And that's our story so far.
posted by Kev & Charlotte at
7:31 PM
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