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Narrandera hazelnut farm
So, one of the few times I remember to take a picture while working: all day yesterday I did nothing but putting the irrigation pipes, that were laid down using rangers/buggies, slightly to the side so they're against the tree line. I must've walked something like 25 km through the same field over and over: start at one side, walk along the pipe to the other side while pushing the pipe aside, walk back. Very educational. I probably shouldn't have told so many people where my car was parked with the keys inside, but I was happy when someone broke into it. For the past 3 days I've been working near Narrandera, helping Agri Australia plant hazelnut trees that will be used by Ferrero Rocher for the production of Nutella, and we were staying in 'Top Pub' (undoubtedly called this way because it's located at the top of the main road, not for any other reason). The hostel we work for arranged for us to stay there for a couple of nights, to save us the one and a half hour drive each day from Griffith to Narrandera. That it meant cooking our food with only a supply of boiling water and a microwave, ah well, right?
But yeah, the first night we took my car to do some shopping at the supermarket 3 blocks away. Why take the car? Well they're big blocks. And we were getting lots of groceries. And oh all right: I'm just turning into a lazy Australian/New Zealander/American, alright?
And, as is very uncharacteristic of me, as all of my friends will attest (
no doubt!): I left the keys
Hmmm..
What this..? in the ignition while locking the car.
No this seriously surprised me, as my routine before closing the door is to check if I have the keys in either my hand or my pocket, so I don't know what happened.
Now my first move was to call the hostel owner who put us in the pub, to see if he was coming to Narrandera in the morning. He could bring my spare keys. However, he told me to go to the pub, and ask around. He was absolutely sure that someone there would be able to open my car for me in 5 seconds flat.
Well first it didn't come to that: one of the french fellow backpackers said: "Oh I can open your car for you!"
"You know how to do that?"
"Oh yeah no problem! Back in France I do it all the time! Just with a {long flat bar/something with a hook} after you strip off the rubber at the window, or by bending the top of the door open."
Now the prospect of potentially damaging the car didn't sound appealing to me, so I did ask at the bar.
Bar lady: "Oh
Ahhh
Oh, but of course. Just another australian huntsman spider. yeah no problem, very easy with a coat hanger. Hey, you know how to do it as well right?"
Guy 1: "Uhh yeah, with a coat hanger after you take off the rubber. Or by bending the door."
Guy 2: "Yeah it's quite easy."
Guy 1: "But I ain't no thief.", he was trying to reassure me.
So I decided to give the french backpacker a go first, after one of the bar guys got us a coat hanger. And man, trying to break into a car sure looks suspicious!
However, he ended up not being succesful, which sort of made me glad it wasn't that easy after all. He told me he had no problems with Renaults, Peugeots or Citroëns, but my 12 year old Daihatsu turned out to be much trickier. Fun fact: he doesn't even have a driver's license.
So back to the pub, to return with a random guy who used to do a certain trick in Melbourne. He got some packing tape at the supermarket (you know, the thin hard plastic ribbon-stuff that goes around boxes), and by {omitted on purpose because it's probably not wise to explain car-stealing techniques on
Brownies
People often get bored in the house I'm staying at in Griffith. So what do they do? They make brownies. It's funny how people ask me if I was a cook back home just because I cook things other than spaghetti in tomato sauce from a can, but they do know how to make brownies. Okok, from a box, with a funky aftertaste, but still. a public blog} he opened my car like it was nothing! Probably took no longer than 30 seconds. And of all the cars passing us by, nobody called the police luckily!
"So did you use to do this as a hobby, or...?"
"No, not as a hobby."
Right.
So happy someone broke into my car, I made sure he got a free beer at the pub. Though the fact it turned out to be so easy was a bit shocking.
Bonus story: My shot at 'Worst Job Ever'
Having so many days off of broccoli picking, we sometimes get other jobs from the hostel. Like the day I cleaned around a grain elevator. Now doing that was fine. Hard work shovelling up spilt grains from concrete, and I won't know how much it pays per hour until wednesday, but fine. Plenty of spiders, but I don't mind the spiders no matter how deadly; at least they eat the frikkin' flies.
However, near the end of the day, there was one job left to do: grain-trucks dump their grain into what is called a 'hopper'; basically a big funnel shaped pit, at the
Random piece of furniture in the house
Everybody knows what this is of course. For my parents however I will tell them this is an art-project by some of my more creative house-mates. bottom of which is a square room with a larger receptacle in which the grain falls. From here the grain gets (screw-)pumped up and into the silos. First the owner said he'd clean the pit himself, because you never know what kind of gasses hang around there.
He changed his mind.
So I climbed down the diagonal path into the pit. Why me? Because the other two guys were afraid of the spiders (mainly) and the mice. Mice? When I disturbed the receptacle with the half-rotted grain still in it, about 10 mice scattered. Spiders? Since it's a low dark room with an opening to the outside, and plenty of rotting food lieing around on the damp, muddy floor, there's plenty occassion for spiderwebs. EVERYWHERE. I don't mind spiders, except when in my hair. In Australia.
Because shoveling the grain around produced so much dust (flour? fungal blooms?) I asked for a dust-mask. Guy came back with a gas-mask. I'm actually surprised Discovery Channel's
Dirty Jobs didn't cover this job. But hey, at least it makes for a nice story, right?
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