Bowen: Fruit Picking, Rain and the Loss of Some Teeth

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Bowen. I believe the best thing I can say about Bowen is that it is not Childers. We arrived with the boys in Hicksville at the end of May and set up camp at a small caravan park in Horseshoe bay. The campsite was perfect: sauna, hot tub, swimming pool, nice kitchen facilities, and only a 30 second stroll from a gorgeous, secluded beach. But before I start sounding like an over-zealous campsite critic, I will say that there were some bad bits too. Namely, the owners kicked us out after a week. The large population of Snowbirds living at the campsite over winter did not take too well to us making noise after dark, hence, we got evicted so that the Blue-hairs could rest properly.

At that time, the Baz Luhrman film ‘Australia’ was being filmed in Bowen, which meant that most of the caravan parks were full. However, we managed to find three tent sites at Bowen Village Caravan Park, which was situated just outside the town. When we arrived there - with cracking hangovers - we pitched the tents in the middle of what could be best described as a desert. The only upside of the campsite's barrenness, was that there were no other campers within shouting distance of our site, so we knew we would not be disturbing anyone with our 'wild and crazy' antics. Within long we did make our site more homely, and arranged a kitchen and living area under the tarp.

After spending so much on Fraser Island, we all needed to find jobs pretty quickly after arriving in Bowen. Colin and Chip found jobs in the packing shed of a corn factory called Mulgowie, where Colin moonlighted as a binman. Wander, Jelmer and Franny picked capsicums (that is peppers to you Brits) at Allensleigh, where I worked in the shed, packing all the capsicums that they picked. It was riveting stuff. For nine hours a day, I had capsicums fall into my shute, where I would check them for bad bits and then put them in the correct size boxes. I was not envious of the pickers though, as there is nothing that would get me out into those fields again and picking fruit for 60 cents a bucket. We did all manage to make some decent money, and we were also saving quite a lot on accommodation, by only spending £25 each per week on camping.

Long-term camping is something I never thought I would get used to, but you really do. There is no room for being a princess in this lifestyle. Our campsite was supposedly eco-friendly, which really meant that they did not want to spend too much on hot water, so the showers turned cold after 4½ minutes. I can tell you, when you come home from a hard day at the packing shed and all you want is a long, hot shower, it does not make you a shiny-happy-person when your shower goes baltic just minutes after you have stepped in to it. Also, the kitchen facilities at Bowen Village were complete mince, so we did all of our cooking under the tarp. Due to the fact that most of the time we all finished work at the same time, we got into a routine of sharing cooking duties, where we took it in turn to cook dinner for each other. There was also no option of watching TV, so we found ourselves having to make up other ways of amusing ourselves.

The Dutchies bought a poker set, so Franny and I dutifully learned the rules. And most of the time, lost horribly. Franny managed to win herself $6 one night, but she said it was more luck than skill, as she still had no clue as to what she was actually supposed to be collecting. Look out Vegas... We had quite a musical family, with Franny, Wander and Scott all having guitars, Wander also having a jambay, as well as the golden egg shaky thing that even an un-musical heathen like myself could play. Songs were made up that got stuck in everyone’s heads, and we delighted in making freaks of ourselves by entertaining various guests we had, by singing as a group such songs as ‘The Avocado Song’, ‘The Dingo Song’ and ‘The Backpacker Song’. Perhaps not the most original titles, but our audiences seemed to enjoy them, even if they did look oddly at us like we should re-name ourselves the Family Von Trapp and go tramping about the Austrian hillsides dodging Nazis.

The rain came while we were in Bowen. During that period of two weeks of solid rain, we were helpfully told by many a Bowenite that it ‘never’ rains in Bowen. I think we got a whole year’s worth of rain in that two weeks, and it all seemed to come downhill and collect around our tents. Within days we were knee-deep in mud and everything we owned was soggy. We had to get all our cars towed out of the mud several times before the owner suggested we could move up the caravan park a bit. So, we moved all the tents, kitchenware, tables and chairs across the campsite, by dragging them across the marsh, barefoot and up to the knees in mud. In the pissing rain. Good times.

The rain also meant we could not work for a lot of the time. There was no picking in the rain, which resulted in there being no fruit to pack. Unfortunately, this was not such a good thing, as none of us had any money to do anything, as well as there being nothing to do in Bowen even if we did. It was during this time that I had a slight biking accident, where I cycled into a storm drain and landed on my face. My front teeth went through my top lip before promptly falling out. Well, one came straight out and the other shattered and had to be taken out at great expense by an extremely evil dentist. I spent a week looking like a camel with my lip swollen up, and scabs on my chin and upper lip (this made me look oddly like Hitler, which I was not so happy about - it is so last season). However, within three weeks of the accident, I was looking like a semi-normal human being again, with brand new falsies. This, I found hilarious, as I had to take my teeth out to brush them like all the grannies do in the campsite bathrooms. Nevertheless, I refrain from taking them out at night and keeping them in a jar by the bedside.

Soon after that, Scott and Caz returned from travelling up north and came to stay with us. Apparently they just could not live without us. They moved their tent next to ours and set about looking for jobs. Wander, Jelmer and Franny, by this point had decided they no longer wanted to pick capsicums and had moved to Mulgowie with Chip and Colin. Franny lasted one morning picking baby corn, before her tongue got so swollen that it would no longer fit in her mouth, and she got taken in to work in the shed by some sympathetic Fijian mamas. Due to the rain ruining all the fruit, I also lost my job at Allensleigh, so I ended up job hunting with Scott and Caz. We managed to get work at Price Farms where they sorted green beans, pumpkins and rock melons. Scott, being a boy, got all the cruisy jobs such as driving the forklift and stacking pallets. Caz and I spent 11-hour days standing in front of a conveyor belt picking out bad beans. I honestly cannot convey just how tediously mind-numbing this actually was. I think if there is such a thing as hell, there is a room there for especially bad people, where they have to pick beans from a bean machine for all eternity. As a special treat, on some days we got to polish phallic pumpkins or pack melons into boxes. Neither Franny nor I were sad to finish at our respective packing sheds, but having made enough money and having completed the required 90 days of seasonal work to apply for a second working visa, we felt that we had achieved something. Character building as Mum would say.

Despite having vile jobs, the time actually passed quite quickly. I think this had a lot to do with having our new ‘family’ around us. At the beginning of August we finished work and had a small party at the caravan park to say goodbye to people from work. We had seen other campers having campfires in our park, so we set one up in the middle of the field, well away from trees and tents. The owner saw the fire being set up during the day and said nothing. Then, when there was maybe around 25 of us just sitting round the campfire later on that night, the (normally nice) owner comes staggering over, steaming drunk, and yells at us saying we were not allowed to have a fire. We tell him then that we will put it out, but he rushes the fire and starts kicking it fully into people’s faces. He had to be restrained and we called the police. We were told by the police that there was nothing they could do, but he had been warned about this type of anti-social behaviour in the past. So, despite his violent conduct, we were the ones to be punished: we got kicked out of yet another campsite.

Even though the filming on ‘Australia’ had finished, Bowen’s caravan parks were still full. By this time, we honestly had no idea why so many people came to Bowen as we all thought it was a complete hole. Nevertheless, our tents had by then multiplied in number to five, which made it even harder to find somewhere to live. Luckily (or unluckily after actually having seen the campsite) we found a place to stay in the show grounds. Having thought Bowen Village was bad, the show grounds were pitiful. It was basically a big empty field, that had tent-breaking, sweeping winds that whipped across it, and concrete shower blocks, that bizarrely had locks on the female toilets but not the men’s. It was an awful place to live, but thankfully we only had less than a week to stay there before leaving Bowen.

The last weekend was spent in Airlie Beach as a farewell to the family before finally going our separate ways. We were also celebrating a triple birthday, as we found it was my birthday on the 9th, Caz’s on the 10th and Chip’s on the 11th. Unfortunately, Bowen saw the end of Scott and Caz’s relationship, and despite our urgings for her to finish her travels with us, she decided it was best to go home to the UK. After an early split of the group, Colin and I left a day before everyone else to go to Airlie, where I got treated to a night at a Spa Resort for my birthday. We had an apartment with a spa on the balcony, and I felt distinctly un-like a backpacker whilst lying in the spa drinking chilled white wine and gazing at the sunset.

Chip returned with his brother from a short trip round the Whitsunday Islands, and everyone else came from Bowen to meet us in Airlie on the Saturday. We went out to a Mexican restaurant and then went to the dancing. After a few nights out in Bowen, Airlie was a big improvement, but dance music was still rife and we longed for the hip-hop of Sydney’s nightlife. The following day, we said a tearful goodbye as we all headed off on our separate journeys. The Dutchies and Scott are staying in Bowen to work a while longer, Chip and Colin are going back to Sydney to settle and hopefully start careers, and Franny and I are going up the backpacker coast to see some more of Australia before our money runs out again.

And so ends the story of the Childers Massive. We have only one thing to thank our psycho landlady in Childers, and that is for us all having the chance to meet up. I do not think we could have asked for a better group of people to live with, and Franny and I will miss them hugely. Its doubtful all of us will be together in the same place again, although separate reunions have been planned. Goodbye to Jelminator, Wandin, The Mac, Cholin, Chippedy-Chip, and Cazmatronic - Bagger and Jules will miss you!

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