Darwin - Part 4

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Monday was a quiet day. We still hadn’t made much progress on finding an apartment, and I wasn’t having much luck with finding work. It was getting a little depressing. But Tuesday, Hillary and I both had a good reason to cheer up. Star Trek! Awesome movie! We both loved it. Action packed, great effects, and laugh-out-loud funny. Zachary Quito made a great Spock too! Could have been a tad longer though.

Now that I think about it, this might have been the turning point for us. Wednesday Hillary and I saw the house that we’d eventually move into! And you know what the funny thing was? After all the hard work and toiling I spent trying to find a place for the two of us, the first place that Hillary found in the newspaper and wanted to check out, ended up being the one. My pride was hurt, but eventually I came to accept Hillary’s superiority in house hunting skills. Lol ~_^

Anyways, the place was located in Karama, a suburb of Darwin. We had to take two buses to get out there, but the room was clean, and the couple living in the house seemed very nice. Been living in Darwin for a few years (Sydney before that), but are originally from China. After seeing the place, we were sold and decided to take it! Don’t worry; we’ll include more info about the house in the next blog entry.

And then on Thursday, I finally got a call about some work! I had applied for some carnival work and they were still looking for people for the upcoming weekend. It wasn’t permanent, but it was a start. And without much time to prepare, as I had to leave the next day and wouldn’t be back till Sunday night!

So how was it being a “carnie”? Well, I used this line about my time as a call centre bill collector, and I feel it applies here as well. I was glad I was able to experience it, but I don’t have any intention of doing it again. Haha It ended up being fun thanks to the other backpackers I was working with, but for the amount of work you do and how little money you make, it’s not quite worth it. I regrettably forget the names of my fellow backpackers I worked with, but I do remember two were from England, and two were from Germany. Go figure. Haha Anyways, this was for the Fred’s Pass Show, down by Palmerston (a town directly beside Darwin). In Australia (or at least in the Northern Territory), fairs/carnivals are called shows. Don’t ask me why, they just are.

I was working with a company called Taylors’ Carnivals. They supposedly do quite a few fairs around the NT. They’ve got plenty of rides, but the ones set up at this show were: a giant set of swings that goes around in circles, an octopus type ride where the cabins spin too, a really big slide, a bumper car ride (called Dodgem Cars), some mini games (with a children’s ride) and jumping castles. A decent selection. A little expensive in my opinion though, but maybe that’s just what the going rates are. $8 for a go on the good rides? Well, plenty of people kept coming back for more.

So what did I do? Friday I worked on the Octopus ride. I basically ripped tickets, helped people onto the ride, and had a ride myself if attendance was low and we needed to balance out the weight. Rides for free? Yes please! At the end of the night, we got to take a look around at some of the other stuff. Other companies had the same type of set up. Very typical. Outside the ride area was an exhibition area with displays from organizations like the armed forces and St John Ambulance. On the other side of the grounds was a field for show jumping and polo. Very cool! Once the day was over, I opted to sleep at the fair grounds. Really no point trying to get a ride back into the city just to stay at a hostel (and pay for it), only to return the next morning bright and early. The trailer we stayed in basically belonged to the guy I was working with on my ride. For the most part, it was 3 sets of bunk beds, with a kitchen sink and refrigerator in the centre. Well, it’s all for the experience, right? Lol

Saturday was a busier day. I spent half my time on the Octopus ride (where my back was starting to get sore from my frequent free rides), and the other half on the Dodgem Cars. I would just say Bumper Cars, but bumping too much was frowned upon, so at least with a name like Dodgem Cars you can’t blame the name. lol Anyways, this was a lot of work. You spend the day running around in the middle of a bumper car platform hopping on and off of customers’ cars trying to steer them in the right direction. I yelled so much that when I spoke to Hillary that night she could barely hear me over the phone. And I felt like I could have been a flight attendant after this because I also spent the day directing people which way to drive (counter clockwise), and mimicking buckling up a safety belt to remind people to buckle up. As usual, it was fun in the end, and you definitely finish up with plenty of fun/horror stories afterwards. You know, all the times where kids hop in, put their safety belt on, but then can’t reach the pedal, so they take it off. Or how some kids love smashing head on (which is a big no-no due to possible whiplash), regardless of how often you yell at them not to, and then they get scolded by their parents about how they didn’t listen to the ride attendant. Or like the times you get nothing but parents with their toddlers in the passenger seat, and no one bumps but all the kids have the time of their lives. Lol Gotta love it.

Sunday was more of the same. I spent my whole time on the Dodgem Cars, but it slowed down a lot near the end. This time I actually had time to grab something to eat! Before leaving on Friday I bought snacks and drinks for the weekend, and even prepared sandwiches. Good stuff. At the end of the day, packing up was a pretty big pain. As expected, there’s a lot that goes into the set up and pack down of carnivals. Took us a few hours just for the preparation, but the heaviest stuff would be saved for the next day, something I was luckily not to be a part of. Lol

Like I said before, it was fun in the end. Plenty of memories when I think back on it. Would I do it again? Probably not, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s the experience that counts. And this is what this trip is about, going home with tons and tons of great stories.

Kevin (and Hillary)

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Photos

Youth Shack
The pool at the back of the hostel.

Youth Shack - 02
The eating and kitchen area.

Frog
Hillary had bought herself a box of McDonald's cookies, and this was the result of playing the games on the back of the box. lol

Fred's Pass Show
This was the section that I worked in during the carnival. I spent the first day on the Octopus Ride.

Fred's Pass Show - 02
People don't call them Bumper Cars in Australia. They're Dodgem Cars. This way if you get hurt from bumping, they can say that you're supposed to dodge and not bump. Trust me, I was the operator on the second and third days, and I was instructed that bumping was frowned upon.

Fred's Pass Show - 03
Running around all day, chasing kids on dodgem cars definitely makes you pretty dirty. By the way, that quarter-eaten sandwich beside my feet is all that I had eaten by 10pm.

Fred
The show was too far to go back to the hostel every night, so I stayed in the company trailer. [Begin Simpsons quote] Some people would call it... cozy. [End Simpsons quote]

Fred's Pass Show - 05
We're not playing around, we're trying to attract customers.

Fred's Pass Show - 06
Eights dollars a ride? Yikes! And to think, we had a lot of repeat customers.