Brissy to Bundi - time to work

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After leaving Byron and spending a large chunk of the money we had saved, Dayna and I knew it was time that the fun had to stop and the work had to start - a part of the trip that we had both been dreading. It has been so nice not working or going to school, not really having any responsiblity whatsoever other than finding a place to sleep, cooking up meals, and finding things to do to occupy ourselves each day. And that has not been a problem thus far in an amazing place such as this. We heard it was easy to get work in Brisbane which is a city an hour west of the coast. So we went there are got ourselves our own appartment! It was soo nice having our own space after living in hostels and constantly being surrounded by people all the time. I got a job doing fundraising for the red cross - It was alright although it was all commission based so it wasn't guarenteed money. I did alright but wasn't the biggest fan of it so I only worked there for 2 weeks. Dayna couldnt' find full time work so she headed up to Bundaberg a week before me to go fruit picking! I joined her the next weekend and started working straight away. The first 3 days I was pruning tomato plants and let me tell you I would honestly rather be back at honda than doing this! We got a wake up call at 4:45 am and then were bused an hour away to a huge farmer's field in the middle of nowhere with no buildings in site. There are rows and rows of baby tomatoe plants that seem to go on forever. For 6 hours 20 of us girls had to sit in the dirt and go up and down the rows pulling off branches growing upwards on every single tomatoe plant in the scortching heat with no shade whatsoever. All of us were dripping with sweat and covered in dirt from head to toe. I have never in my life experienced heat like that or been so dirty for that matter. I felt like a slave.. probably because it basically is slave labour and no one else in their right minds would do work like this except for poor backpackers trying desparately to make money so they don't have to end their journey and return home just yet! Dayna started working before me so she's on a different farm but luckily I got moved to hers on Thursday which in my opinion is waaay better! We are inside packing mangos all day which does get boring but it pays really well and at least I get to work with Dayna. And the best part about it is that we get free mangos! I had never had one before coming to Australia and I can now say they are one of my favourite fruits! Anyways, there's not much to do in this town so it will be easy for us to actually save some money. There's the Bundaberg rum factory which you can get tours of and the beach is only 15 minutes away. After my first day of work these 2 Canadian girls I met who had a car took me to the beach to cool off. It was a really beautiful and I was amazed at how warm the water was. It must have been 85 degrees. It was actually too warm - we didn't even feel refreshed! But yeah other than that everyone just chills at the hostel after work trying to pass the time just waiting until they can get out of here! We only have one more week left so we'll be gone before we know it! We planned out the rest of our trip the other day and we have so many amazing places to go and things to do.. It will be so rewarding after working here for 3 weeks. We are off to New Zealand next Monday for 18 days and then are going to finish the rest of the East Coast when we get back! I'll try to be a bit better at keeping you updated...

Before coming to Australia I really didn't know much about it and I'm sure most of you don't either. I'm reading this book called Down Under by Bill Bryson and I think you'll find these facts about Australia quite interesting:

Australia is the world's 6th largest country and its largest island. It is the only island that is also a continent, and the only continent that is also a country. It was the first continetnt conquered from the sea, and the last. It is the only nation that began as a prison. It is the home of the largest living thing on Earth, the Great Barrier Reef, and of the most famous and striking monolith, Ayers Rock. It has more things that will kill you than anywhere else. Of the world's ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. Five of its creatures - the funnel-web spider, box jellyfish, blue-ringed octopus, paralysis tick and stonefish- are the most lethal of their type in the world. if you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback. It's a tough place and it is old. The most ancient rocks and fossils, the earliest animal tracks and riverbeds, the first faint signs of life itself were found here. Before there were modern humans in the Americas of Europe Australia was quietly invaded by the Aborigines who have no clearly evident racial or linguistic kinship to their neighbours in the region, and whose presence here can be explained only by positing that they invented and mastered ocean-going crafts at least 30000 years in advance of anyone else then forgot or abandoned nearly all that they had learned. It is an accomplishment so singular and extraordinary that most histories have left it out completely and talk about the more explicable invation which begins with the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1770. The world those first Englishmen found was unlike anything any of them had seen before and was completely inverted - its seasons back to front, its constellations upside down. Its creatures seemed to have evolved as if they had misread the manual. The most characteristic of them didn't run or lope or canter, but bounced across the landscape like dropped balls. It contained fish that could climb trees; a fox that flew ( actually a very large bat); and crustaceans so large that a grown man could climb inside their shells. In short, there was no place in the world like it. There still isn't. 80%!o(MISSING)f all that lives in Australia, plant and animal, exists nowhere else. more than this it exists in an abundance that seems incompatible with the environment. Australia is that driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and yet it teems with life in numbers uncounted.

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