Working in Childers

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Well folks after New Years we had a couple of more days in the apartment before we had to sadly leave it and go back to hostel world! Emma left and headed back to Melbourne as she worked there at that time, Sam and Cat stayed at a hostel in Glebe and me and Laura headed to Bondi Beach for a few days-it was fantastic! We spent some time on the famous beach and chilled out before heading back to stay in the city centre at 'Sydney Backpackers' which is a awesome hostel right in the heart of the city! One day we got together with Sam and Cat and also with a friend Laura had made in Adelaide called Brooke who was a Aussie living in Sydney and we went up the Sydney Sky Tower which was apparently great and gave you a 360 degree view of Sydney! So we all met up and headed up the huge tower, it was awesome! The views were so fantastic and we had a lovely dinner and few drinks there before our next stop, The Scruffy Murphys pub! At Scruffys we had a few drinks and watched some Drag Queens do karoke, it was hilarious! Whilst there i seen a girl walk in who looked like one of my friends back home, Erin. When the girl turned around i was gobsmacked-it was her!!!! It was so awesome to see her again and have a catch up!! Superb! A great night!
We stayed in Sydney city centre for about a week or so and during that time we realised how majorly skint we were so unfortunately it was time to get a job! The search felt like a lifetime, and after sending a lot of CV's by email to companies, calling around, going on first and second interviews we decided that we would actually try and get a job doing harvest work which we quite fancied! It was meant to be hard work but a total experience so we called 'The harvest hotline' and became members (not worth the money at all btw!!!) and they told us we had a job in a place on the East Coast called Bundaberg where we would be working for a guy doing fruitpicking of some sort. So off we headed, booked the bus up and headed off saying goodbye to our beloved Sydney which i fell in love with. We had to get the bus to Brisbane first then a bus from there to Bundaberg (also known as Bundy) so after the 30 or so hours of non stop travelling we finally arrived in Bundy woohoo! It was almost midnight and we were nackered so we hopped off the bus expecting to see the guy we were told would be picking us up to take us to our new hostel but instead we were saying hello to some dunken but friendly enough guys chilling out at the bus stop! After Laura called the guy we would be working for who didnt remember us at all he eventually got in contact with his driver who 30minutes later picked us up-finally woohoo! But oh no, the worst was yet to come! As we drove quite far out from the centre of Bundy to 'the unknown' we arrived at a hostel???? I question this as it should be called the dump! As we walked inside to our room as i was frozen with disgust! It was minging! The driver however had left obviously knowing we would be asking what the hell this dump was, and so we had nothing else to do but look around and get even more disgusted! Ill describe the room to you: it had to bunk beds in it, both looked a couple of decades old and falling apart. The linen provided was disgusting with very questionable marks on them, the floor was ant infested and also had a few cockroaches buzzing away on it, the toilet just basically gave me the boak! The shower was white or should i say it used to be, it was now a black, brown colour with again some quetionable marks on it and had a bin bag as a cover! I didnt even sit on the loo as god knows what would have biten me, and the ants were all over the wash hand basin so as you can see from this actually nice-ish description it was horrible! Unfortuanately for us there was nothing else to do but to sit on the beds and try and sleep so we did, it was sleep of some sort anyway.
The following day we awoke and decided to go immediately and look for the manager who we would have a strongly worded conversation with and be moved but oh no, instead we came accross a empty minging reception with no one around, as we walked away we then bumped in to 2 girls who told us they had been there for weeks and were disgusted at their rooms too but couldnt afford to leave. They also told us about how they hadnt had one days work so far yet either so me and Laura got on our backpacks and left! We got the bus in to the centre and made some calls from outside the IGA (a supermarket) on a bench, luckily we came accross Rhonda and Dennis at the Sugarbowl in Childers, a town close to Bundaberg! They sounded lovely and could give us a job straight away yippee!!! The only thing was we had to wait about 5 hours on Dennis to pick us up but at that point we didnt care, so 5 hours later outside the same IGA on the same bench we got picked up by Dennis! We were diven to our new hostel called 'The Sugar Bowl' which was our new home for the next 4 weeks! brilliant!! Once we arrived we were greeted by Rhonda who was absolutely lovely and welcomed us to The Sugar Bowl, she was saying how our mums could call her for a chat to see what we are doing and that if we have any problems just to come and talk to her-sweetie!! Anyway, we checked in to our 'Bunkhouse' which was just down a hill from reception. There was 3 buildings side by side each with about 7 bunk houses in them. Each bunk house was basically a room with 1 bunk bed and one single bed so there is altogether 3 people in each house. We had a room mate called Anna from Germany, she seemed really nice and friendly! That night we talked to some of the other backpackers there and they all seemed pretty nice. That night we got all organised, unpacked and made up our lunches for the next day-we would be starting work woohoo!! At night you had to check the rota to see what bus you would be on, what time you would be getting picked up at and what farm you would be on so we checked that night and were stunned when we read that our pick up was at 4.15 the following morning-to bed it was for us! The following morning we were a bit apprehensive about what we would be doing but also excited! We shouldnt have been, we should have been worried! That day we worked at 'Manual Tomato planting' oh the joy! NOT! It was bloody hard work! We basically were down on our hands and knees digging holes with our fingers to then pop a tomato plant in to then cover up before crawling over on to the next, it was a hot day and so at 12 o clock after only 1 break from when we started at 5.30 we were nackered, sweaty and extremely sore! Oh the pain! Luckily for us at lunchtime they decided to call the day quits and head home, hooray! Only for us we would still be there 2hours later waiting on the hostel to pick us up! At about 3 we arrived back at Sugar Bowl where we went for much needed showers since we were black with dirt! That night we basically collapsed in bed and watched our tv-thank god! I was extremely nervous about the next day, i really didnt want to go back to tomato planting but when we checked the rota we were on a different list-thank the lord!!!! I never knew happiness like it! haha!

The following day we started at Ivans farm- in a shed- fantastic!!!! Our jobs along with about 10 others was to pluck lychees! When the crates of lychees that had just been picked out in the farm came in we filled up a box of them and then stood by a conveyor belt and plucked them off their stems-i hear you laughing but compared to tomato planting this was heaven! We would work until we were told to stop, so some days it would be 6-5, others would be 6-12, we got 2 breaks per day, Shaun was our supervisor (a Aussie guy who used to wear tiny shorts and boot covers and so looked like a poodle-couldnt stop laughing every time i seen him!!) Ivan (or Aussie as people called him) was our manager-a nice guy. We worked with some Aussies and some other backpackers-a nice bunch of people although i must say i knew some country Aussie woman could be rough but my god i hadnt met any like the ones i met there! The were rough as sandpaper, and the language was minging (how old do i sound!!!!) eek, just thinking about one of them makes me feel a little bit sick, she had barely any teeth and used to eat some lychees whilst working and honestly it was the most revolting sight you can ever imagine haha! Anyway, on to a nicer subject, so everyone was lovely especially one girl who was called Tiana, she was lovely and i had a right laugh with her! We had fun working there although some days you got so bored but in order to remember how good we had it i would remind myself about the tomato planting and id be fine! During the day we would be there, 7 days a week and at night we would go for some shopping then chill out at The Sugar Bowl where we made some great friends! We went to work each day with the same people from our hostel until we finished up at Ivans 4 weeks later so it means we made some great friends, Laura the mad German girl, Toni, a fellow Scot, the 2 Sarah's from Canada, Joe from England and some others. One girl who we worked with and got on really well with was a Aussie called Sarah, she was heading up North once the lychees at Ivans finished, we had planned to do the same and so we decided to all go together, she had a camper van and so a Roadtrip was planned! Bring it on!!!! We ended our time at The Sugar Bowl after 4 weeks, we worked for a total of 25 days straight and looking back it was awesome! A great time making friends, working and saving money! Brilliant! During our time there we also celebrated Pancake Tuesday-a bunch of us got pancake mix and made some up and sat munching them and having a drink, it was a great laugh! We also went to one of the pubs in the little town which was a experience alone! We met some locals, one who was being looked for by the Police, another who's name was Needle (didnt want to know why) and some others who were 'characters'. We also got our ears peirced again (one Friday for something exciting to do) and dyed our hair! I decided i wanted to be a total blond and Laura decided she wanted blond highlights so i became a hairdresser for the day-i honestly think it should be my profession-Laura's turned out awesome!!!! Mines is lets just say very blond! We also bought the greatest purchase ever for when your bored-colouring books! It was great, we sat in our afternoons or night and had a wee colour in-you may laugh but it was great fun plus some others joined in! Joe had a great time colouring in his clown haha! As you can see we had a great time there and it wont be forgotten easily, Childers rocked! (Just didnt seem it at the time but looking back it was awesome!)
Next on the agenda for us-Roadtrip baby!!!! 😊

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Photos

Sam, Me, Cat, Laura and Brooke
In the Sydney Tower having dinner