Home Hill

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"Las Vegas of North Queensland", "Queenslands hidden gem !!", "Paradise Found !!".

Just some of the comments that will never, ever be written about Home Hill !!

The signs were there of course. When we got on the bus in Airlie Beach and told the driver we were going to Home Hill, he looked at me like I'd walked into his house on Christmas Day and peed on his kids.

"Home Hill ?? Are you sure ??".

"Er, yeah I'm sure".

"Well I don't have any baggage tags for Home Hill, no-one normally gets off there".

It should really have set alarm bells ringing at that point but for one reason or another, it didn't. We had phoned ahead to The Malpass Hotel in Home Hill from Airlie beach and was greeted by Phil the owner. We'd asked if he had any work available and he said that he didn't at the moment but could Lee work behind a bar and could I do some handiwork around the place for a week. Being short of a bit of cash and at that point, looking forward to working, we booked ourselves in and set off.

For once it wasn't a massive journey on the bus, just 3 hours this time, and we were deposited on the side of the Bruce Highway, in the small town of Home Hill. I think a few concerned looks passed between us as the bus rolled away from the stop but this was what we were here for wasn't it, new places, new adventures, that sort of thing. We asked a woman if she could direct us to The Malpass and she pointed to a building about 4 hundred yards up the street. "That's it there", she said "but it's closed just now, the grand re-opening is on Saturday". Grand re-opening, thinks us, sounds interesting so off we went and were met by Phil and Mal, the new owners of the Malpas Hotel **** Backpakers.

Turns out, Phil and Mal had been business partners for around 20 years and from what little they told us, it would appear they were fairly successful at what they do. Until 3 weeks ago, they had merely owned the property but had had someone else in to run the actual Hotel/Hostel for them. 3 weeks ago, the manager had done a runner on them, leaving behind a massive amount of debt and literally no stock in their bottle shop or in the hotel bar. It had all been sold out from underneath them. The idea was that Lee would do an hours trial in the bar for them on Saturday when they opened and in the meantime, I would help them get the hostel ready for people moving in. We had 7 days. There are 16 rooms in the hostel and there were still about 4 rooms that still needed cleaning, plus the managers quarters and all 5 rooms were absolutley covered in cobwebs, spiders, muck, dartboards drawn on walls and were not fit for a dog basically but we got them up to some sort of standard and the place was ready to open on the Saturday. On the day of opening, Lee started her trial at 10am for an hour. She finished that day at 10pm. She had the job. I was then informed that I would be starting on a farm on the Monday morning. We both had jobs so we were felling a lot better.

People had started to move in by this time and there was a distinct lack of British or even European faces by this point, everyone moving in was from Korea, Japan or China. There are literally thousands of Asians who come to Australia each year to pick on the farms as it is one of the few jobs that can be done without a big language barrier. It wasn't really a big problem for us as they were all really friendly but they did keep themselves to themselves so you felt a wee bit left out. And it did get to the point where if anyone asked where we were from I was just saying "Scottorand" because you just got used to their pronunciation. That was, until Harumi and Nobu moved in to the the room next door to us. They were from Japan and, Nobu in particular, rather enjoyed a drink at night so we had a couple of new pals to spend the evenings with while we waited to start work. Nobu's favourite drink was a tumbler of white wine topped up with Johnnie Walker. We got along great.

When　Monday arrived we were up at 05.30 for an 06.15 lift to our farms which were about 40 minutes down the road in Gumlu. We were met at hte farm by Andrew, Josh, Brendan and Bill who'd be showing us the ropes. There aren' really many ropes to be honest to picking peppers (or capsicums as they are known down here). You walk down a row of pepper bushes about a foot and a half high and pick the peppers from them and place them on a conveyor belt in front of you about knee height, this moves along the row at about 1 inch per second. We would be working from 7am until 10 when we would get 15 minutes break then lunch at 12 for an hour and then finish at 4pm. We'd been picking for what I thought had been a couple of hours minimum and I was looking forward to my cup of coffe when the boy on the radio informs us all in a cheery voice that we will now be going for a news update. The News at 8am. I won't lie to you folks, I cried a wee bit at this point. It was probably the lowest I have felt in my short time on this planet (and I include the 6-2 game at ER in this). I got in that day and Lee was waiting for me and I must have looked like I'd been beaten up. I could barely climb the stairs, my back was in tatters and I had one of those 1000 yard stares that you see on Vietnam Veterans. I told Lee after the first day that I didn't think that a second years visa was worth three months of this so we decided to give it until the end of the week and then decide what we were going to do. Salvation was only 2 more days away. On the Wednesday, we were told that we would be needing one less peron for the next day, and being the one person who understood this straight away, I volunteered to be re-assigned. What a complete wuss.

I got back to the hostel and informed Phil that I would not be needed any more and did he have anything else for me. Turned out he had just gotten two Korean guys a job at a seed farm in Gumlu and they needed another person and did I fancy it. I didn't leave the seed farm until 3 and a half months later. It was braw, we watered plants, washed seed trays, racked our plants on benches outside, made up orders for local farms, delivered orders to the farms in the ute (that's a 4x4 to all you non-farmers). I don't think I've actually enjoyed a job that much since I left school, vest and shorts, sun beating down and pretty much left to your own devices. I scored big style with my job.

Lee, meanwhile, was having her own problems in the bar. Phil thought that Lee should be at his beck and call and should have to work all the crappy shifts that no-one else wanted as she was just a backpacker and needed the money. He would bang on her door at 9 in the morning on her day off and tell her to be downstairs in 10 minutes as something had come up. Simple as that. Added to the fact that he completely refused to do a rota for her, she was having a pretty miserable time. It's a bit different working in a country pub in North Qld than it is back home. You HAVE to remember what everyone drinks, they will tell you the first time but after that, they get ratty if you need to ask again. If their glass is nearing empty, you don't ask if they would like another, you just give them one. The way of notifying you that they are finished is when they place their glass on it's side on the bar. Oh aye, and you don't ask them for money for thier drinks, they put their money on the bar and you just take it off the bar and put their change back there on the bar. It's all very weird.

After about a wee and a half of this, some English lads, Trevor, Dave and Paul arrived and they were the first English speaking folk to arrive since we had been there. I say English speaking, they were from Sunderland, so not technically English-speaking. The day after that, Vicky and Steph, 2 Scousers arrived from Airlie Beach and everyone seemed to hi it off really well and that was our wee gang for the Malpass. Vicci and Steph got jobs working for the hostel at the start and on the bar with Lee and the boys were picking capsicums so everyone had jobs and was fairly happy. Then Phil started mucking the girls about again in the bar so Vicci asked to be out on a farm, and Phil told her that this would not be a problem. To cut a long story short he passed her over loads of jobs and lied to her about his reasons until he was virtually forced to give her a cash-in-hand job on a fruit stall. The owner of the fruit stall had been expecting her about 3 weeks before but Phil had neglected to tell her this. There are countless other stories I could write here regarding how many times Phil upset folk at the hostel, but this is a happy blog and there are better stories to tell.

Given the kind of siege mentality that was around the hostel, it was decided a boycott of the hotel bar was in order to show the owners that we were annoyed and this meant making our own entertainment. Now until recently, Home Hill was just a one-horse town just waiting to be discovered and then a couple of years ago, it was graced with The Comfort Stop. This is a place built in Home Hill for travellers who were passing through, to get a wash, have a barbecue and camp over for the night, and not have to pay for any campsite fees. This, according to a local travel brochure, had turned Home Hill into a "Mecca for tourists", high praise I think you'll agree and no doubt highly disputed by every single vistor to this revered facility. It was basically a toilet block and a couple of barbecues. Nevertheless it became the new place to be seen at and a couple of brillliant nights were had at The Comfot Stop, one of which we held in honour of Jay, our mate from Walsall who was leaving for Sydney. He suggested that we all put our names in a hat, and we had to go dressed as whoever we picked out the hat, I managed to pick out Vicci, Lee mannaged to pick out Jay, Steph picked out my name and Dave went as Lee. While Paul was working on his fruit stall the next day, a customer commented on the 6 foot plus cross-dresser she had encountered in Home Hill the previous night. Oops.

Towards the end of our stay at the hostel, Lee, Dave and Steph were all working at the seed farm with me and the other guys all had jobs as well. It was just a matter of counting down the days until we left. It dragged on something rotten, particularly as during our stay here, 8 of us had decided to take a road trip to Alice Springs from Cairns in a camper van. There would be 6 of us in a camper van and 2 of the guys, Mike and Lewis (pronounced Loo-ee) would follow in their car. It got to the stage that we would be getting in from work, and almost heading straight to bed so that we wouldn't have to sit and wait around for the next day. I don't think we have ever been as glad to leave a place as we have after 14 weeks in Home Hell.

Having said that, I still think we'll look back on it and laugh. In a few years though. The scars are still a bit raw.

Cairns next.

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