Advertisement
Published: September 15th 2007
Edit Blog Post
We started work for Tony on the Monday, we were shown the way in which he wanted the vines pruned, This was a new way to what we had been doing as he didn’t want the big thick vines cut off like the terraces had wanted, this was good news for us as the thick vines had really started to take the toll on our hands!
After working for Tony for a few weeks he gave us both a set of electric prune’s to use. These were good fun as all you had to do was squeeze the trigger! This may sound lazy but cutting non stop for eight hours everyday can get a little tiring.
We worked in the Adelaide hills (Clarendon) for the final few weeks of the season, this came with the use of a barn where we could hook up to the electric and get shelter from the wind, which could get pretty strong at times. The first time we pulled up into the shed we thought GREAT! It looks like a scene out of wolf creek! The barn was full of strange looking tools which could of came of the set of saw 3,
The A Team!
The Vine team! Tony is the one second from the left there was also a large chain winch above where we were to park the van, I had visions of coming back from having a piss and seeing Chris hanging there or something! But thankfully that never happened. We grew quite attached to the barn in the end as we had managed to construct a shower cubical out of bales and also set up a table tennis table that had been sat in a corner gathering dust. There were times I thought we may become pro’s as it’s all we seemed to do! The quad bike that we used for work was also parked in the barn; this was too much of a temptation not to play with!
There was a great feeling of relief when the pruning season was over with, we had had some good laughs and made some good mates. Tony laid on a BBQ for all of us which I thought were a nice touch.
After the BBQ we ventured out into the city, Adelaide has its fair share of bars and clubs, oh and also a casino, much to the delight of Chris. As we entered the casino it was my round so I
headed for the bar, Chris headed for the poker table, tut! tut! The flashing light had drew him in, and there was no going back!!
Although we had finished our work pruning we still had to raise some more cash to fund the next part of out trip and to pay for $2000 worth of work to be done on the engine as it had started overheating! The carb had to be overhauled and the cylinder head to be rebuilt. So we started a new job, working for Steamatic. This was a company that specialised in flood and fire restoration, basically if there was a flood or fire then Steamatic would come in and clean the contents or take up the damaged flooring Ect. This was a well paid and easy job to be honest, we did a lot of our work in the warehouse and also ripping up floors in some pretty nice houses, all good fun!
I was under the impression that flood and water damage was all Steamatic did, however I was wrong, these guys would clean anything! Even suicides and murders!
I had been working in the warehouse when I was listening to
Mad Max
Boys toy! the news on the radio when I heard about a lady who had died by bleeding to death; she had cut through a main artery while trying to open a boxed treadmill. Nasty I thought, what a way to go! Guess who had to clean up the mess? Yep me! I was sent to the job along with a guy called Dwayne! We had to wear forensic suits, gloves and masks for obvious reasons! I’m not easily affected by things like this however it was quite eerie being in the house. There were blood stains on the carpet and chairs in the living room and then a huge pool of blood on the floor neat to the kitchen which was about as far as she had maid it (five steps!) There was a lasagne on the kitchen bench and a half touched drink, this sent a cold chill down my spine to think that she had no idea what was about to happen! So remember kids DON’T PLAY WITH KNIVES!
Thankfully that was the only job of this kind, later me and Chris got put on the same job, it was a fire cleanup. The job was to clean a factory; there was smoke damage to the walls, ceiling and machinery. It all had to be cleaned! Steamatic put both me and Chris through our boom lift licences which meant we could operate the lifts. We were given the job of cleaning the roof and top walls. As the basket would carry two people both I and Chris were given a worker each. This is how we met Steve.
Steve was old school; he was about 48 years old and was a Johnny Cash impersonator. He played the guitar and sang just like him.
We stayed round his house odd weekends and sometimes through the week. It was nice to have home comforts again. Its amazing the things you take for granted, a bed, running water, and TV lol
The man was also a keen hunter, he took us into his shed and showed us a whole arsonary of rifles, I’m not kidding, you would think the man was going to start a rebellion or something; unfortunately he wouldn’t let us take any pics of the guns. Steve liked to play his guitar and sing away to his hearts content. It was good as it was like we had private concert. He had two guitars so I used to play along with him, every now and then I would play “E” (chord) ok so I’m no Jimmy Hendrix but Ill give it a go!
After our work was finished with Steamatic we headed for the outback, north of Adelaide to a town called Broken Hill. We travelled for miles through the outback to reach the town. Suprisingly it inhabits around 24,000 people, strange as the town is literally in the middle of nowhere! There wasn't really a lot of things to do at Broken Hill so we headed a few kilometres north to Silvertown. This is a ghost town with not very much in the way of shops ECT, just dusty roads and outback scenery. It was the place where Mad Max 2 was filmed, pretty cool I thought!
The next day we made out way towards Canberra the capital city. On the way back through the outback we pulled over to take a look at the stars, wow! I’ve never seen so many. Being miles from nowhere there was no light pollution and because the land was so flat it made it easy to see every star in the sky, you could see the whole Milky Way! This is a memory that I will probably hold forever as the scenery was breathtaking!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0383s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Catherine
non-member comment
Hellooooooo
3 weeks to go!!!!!!!!!