Chilling in Mildura

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So, we're still in the sleepy town of Mildura, right on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. We've got a new job now working with a nice Citrus farmer called Steve, and his two labs, Indie and Bella. Our other job steadily got worse and worse as the days went on. In our last week there, we each earned a whopping 33 pounds sterling. Not very good considering that was after 6 days work, and that our rent alone is double that. So we now pick oranges when the weather is right. The oranges must be at least 9 degrees to pick, and you also can't pick them when they're wet as wet finger prints leave bruises on them, which don't show for like 2 weeks. Steve is good though, if we can't pick then he gives us vine pruning work. It is very boring, and we get paid by the vine, so you have to be quite quick to earn good money. The last couple of days have been quite good though as we have been doing slightly different work, which he pays us hourly, 9 pound to be exact! Unfortunately though, we're getting taxed 29% because we're not a resident, so we don't come away with much at the end of the week. We should get the tax money back when we leave Australia though.

Apart from that, life has been pretty uneventful. Our room-mate has thankfully moved out. He waas a radio producer who liked to talk in his sleep. Whether it be random screaming of swear words, or Aussie Rules talk. He slept on top of Nicola (the top bunk of course) and kept her up most of the night with his tossing and turning. Oh, and a very nice man who was staying at our hostel for a week, took the three of us out to a horse and chariot race night. It was quite an experience. We bet 10 dollars on every race (funded by the nice man, who also bought us fish and chips!) and only ended up losing 10 dollars.

I have also drank away any disposable income I've got. Last week I found some wine selling for $2 a bottle, 1 pound for a bottle of wine! My Kiwi friend, Gus, referred to it as 2 buck chuck! A nice English couple left yesterday so we had a farewell drink on Thursday. Half a box of goon later, I realised I better go to bed as we had work early the next day. I obviously wasn't very productive at work but luckily we got a few hours work paid by the hour so it didn't really matter. Nicola and Stefanie don't really get involved in the rest of the hostels drinking escapades, as they would rather spend there money on McDonalds and the cinema though, boring old farts that they are.

This is now our final week here. Today, I am doing my washing and then my final weeks shopping. Next Saturday we are off to Melbourne for some football, penguins, Neighbours and probably alcohol. The PC keeps crashing when I try to put pictures on so I'll put them up at the weekend or something.

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