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Glasshouse Mountains
The magnificent view 10 mins from Roxannes house.Today was a productive day. I arose after the hum of the Hockey household dissipated and the working day approached. Four slices of wholemeal toast and a fresh brew of Australian coffee set me up for the afternoon ahead. With passport and printed visa in hand I meandered the soggy grounds of the large queenslander, the comfortable home of my Australian friend Roxanne. After a quick oil check with troubled Matilda and Tom Pettys 'Full Moon Fever' queued on the ipod I hastened out the driveway and negotiated the winding roads that descend from the glorious Glass House Mountains. Concious of the breathtaking scenery dissolving in my rear view mirror I came to find my next stop Caboolture was all to drab to say the least, but necessary nonetheless. A quick stop at a major discount store to buy a shirt, slacks, plain shoes and mandatory socks, left my wallet with surprisingly dry eyes. However the experience was a little unsettling and reminded me of 'Michael Guineys' as a child hunting for budget clothing and bumper packs of tea towels, but at least I still had travel money and my sanity so all was good. With Tom Petty's dark finale 'Zombie
Zoo' accompanying me out onto the Bruce Highway, Matilda engaged into maximum warp (her prized fourth gear) and into the arms of Brisbane we were whisked for my first Australian interview.
Gayndah....ohh Gayndah, I bow and shake my head when I utter her name. A single unnerving chill runs down my spine and flashbacks of Mandarin laden trees fill my concious memory. For the 'Manda Madness' had made me run, like a school boy after fillings from the local government subsidised dentist, into the welcoming sunshine of civilisation. Ten weeks before this awakening, Marcel and I, surviving on a rota of friend rice one night and pasta the next (all vegetarian, not our number one choice), descended like vultures on Queensland's oldest town in search of fruit picking work. "Four days!" The local employment agency representative and full time caravan park owner ambiguously informed us. So with nothing else to do in this small farming community but wait, we emptied Matilda's innards onto our plot in the riverside caravan park and set up camp. Over the next few excruciatingly long days we were surprised to find what hidden gems Matilda had for us, a fishing rod, a spear fishing
rod, a full toolbox, electric drill, fuel cans, tarps with poles...the list goes on. With Marcel burning through hundreds of pages a day in reading material and myself watching him, restless, agitated and concerned over my mental health, we were elated to find out (10 days later) that the 'Sheppard farm' was to be our new place of work.
At one metre cubed (1m X 1m X 1m) and weighing in (full) at a quarter tonne, a wooden crate known as a bin is how mandarins are transported and priced. The average fruit picker can pack forty of these sweet fruits into a bag strapped over their shoulder and with approximately twenty eight bags to a bin, a bin can be filled in about five hours for a novice picker. A veteran to the picking game may pump out a bin in under two hours given good sized fruit and favourable weather conditions. You cant pick the fruit when it rains. You cant pick the fruit under a certain size. You cant leave a bin any less than full. You can however, leave the field after any finished bins and stay at home on days you just don't feel
up for wearing a face of spider webs. With the farmer pulling in $1200 (€680) per bin it seems quite pitiful that we received a meagre $75 (€43) per bin. However with accommodation in the local camp site cheap and nothing much to spend money on, much of our earnings could be saved. With morale boosting, friends being made and cash flowing in, this small town became our home, the back of Matilda, my bedroom. Although the season started off very slow, yielding washed out days and unripe fruit, the little amount of money trickling into our accounts kept us fed and the beer supply flowing (much needed after hours toiling in the sun drenched orchards).
Every second Friday night in Gayndah was disco night! Backpackers and locals alike from farms in the district flocked to the local hotel-pub to swill pitchers of beer and talk shop while listening to Gayndahs very own DJ's play the latest cheesy chart toppers. The "Disco" itself was a sight for no sober man, one had to be armed to the tooth with alcohol to enter this arena. The small function room, furnished with dining tables and chairs, looked like something from a
bad 21st birthday party or at best the aftermath of a successful Bingo conference! The Dj's "booth" was comically simple, a solitary dining table turned at a angle divorced it from its empty brethren spread uniformly throughout the room. A gap in the furniture where the musky carpet turned frail was the obvious dance floor. The local girls cavorted around handbags adorned by a few stage lamps hastily fixed together atop a metal frame. The stale smell of beer, the local "talent" giving it their all, the hilarity of the situation only seemed to force your arms swinging and your legs jumping. There was no etiquette in sight, one could do the chicken dance in this circus and no-one would bat an eyelid. Truckers, farmers, Swedish girls, you name it, the disco had it. As much as I joke about this bi-weekly event, if it could be called that, much fun was had at a few disco's and many friends were made. During the off weekends when the disco was nothing but a jukebox in the corner offering up classic country and soft rock (Marcel putting away dollars into this machine like a lunatic), we ventured on road trips to
keep our minds off the mandarins. Easter was spent at a backpackers retreat - a couch surfing party house in Brisbane called 'The Forest' (Eloquently named after the amount of living creatures that reside there). On another occasion we visited the famed rebellious town of Nimbin for its annual 'Mardi-Grass' festival (Not a typo) where they celebrate the elusive Marijuana plant and protest, on deaf ears, for its legalisation in Australia.
A little back story: It is said that nomadic travellers (Hippies) arrived in this scenic hilltop town in the seventies for a small music festival and have stayed since. Marijuana had been smoked freely in the town until a high profile community member was arrested for possession in a move by the police to show force. After lengthy marches and the shut down of the community in protest, said Hippy was realised and dreadlocked reggae music fiends have been smoking pot there since. Fact or fiction, the story deserves merit for its comedic value. On this memorable weekend myself and a German friend experienced our first Australian 'Duff', an illegal but safe dance event hidden in the impressive mountains surrounding Nimbin. The fantastic weekend came crashing to a close
on a cold Sunday night when our thoughts were uncontrollably diverted to the roving fields of Gayndah. With sullen faces and weary eyes, three Irish and two Germans departed for the 6 hour epic back to mandarin country.
There comes a time when a backpacker during the harvest takes a good look at their current situation. They weigh up the money they have made, the money they have saved, the hours they have worked, the fun they have had and compare it to their current mental well being. After quick assessment this picker realises just one of two things; either 1) They are born pickers, they destroy mandarin tree's and eat their roots for breakfast. The inevitably pump out numerous bins in a day and see dollars signs on every pay check. Or conversely 2) They get the 'Manda Madness'! Im not too sure if 'Manda Madness' is a medical term but you can ask any broken backpacker returning to civilisation and they will swear by it. It can be described as 'the loss of desire or will to pick mandarins regardless of the monetary compensation it yields'. Symptoms of 'Manda Madness' include:
* Naming the spiders that trouble your little foreign brain every day. 'Robert
Redback' and '
Funnel Web Mike' being amongst some of our favourites.
* Theorising the various picking techniques of the infamous 'Billy 9 Bins'.
An unknown picker (we penned his name) who once put out nine bins from sun up to sunset. Some say he is 7 foot tall with nails so sharp he doesn't need clippers. Some folks say he scares the mandarins off the trees with his moustache! All we know is that he is engrained in Gayndan lore and is a man not to be challenged to a pick-off. * Dreaming of mandarins at night. Big ones, small ones, ugly ones and siamese twins ones.
* Debating the various ways Chuck Norris would pick a mandarin tree.
* Closing your eyes in the field and seeing nothing but the colour orange.
I can admit that by the last week in May, the madness had a grip over me. I needed civilisation. I needed a home (No offence Matilda). I wanted to have work days where I had more than four hours besides sleeping and working. Marcel and his girlfriend Gill had, by this stage, found cosy accommodation for themselves and could come back to a place they called home, thus keeping their sanity intact. I was subsequently expelled by the camp site owner as I did not pay rent to sleep in the van. Thus like Harrison Ford my childhood hero, I was a fugitive on the run. The local hotel owner where my German friends stayed became paranoid that I was crashing in their room and soon I was back on the streets, Matilda and I finding any street corner we could park at for the night.
Oil checked, tyres stuffed, coolant levels constant. Goodbyes said to good friends. Bags loaded. Wallet/Passport/Ipod check. "Where's the ipod? Oh yes, 'Daft Punk' please Marcel". Tom Tom: Navigate to: Sunshine Coast. "Matilda please start". Extended pause. "YES...Engage!". The lights of Gayndah didn't shrink in my rear view mirror, just darkness. One kilometre from my home for the last 2 months yielded an empty countryside, but the happiness that in two hours we would turn onto the brightly lit Bruce Highway back into civilisation, was stirring delightfully in my stomach.
With only little savings from my days in the field, and Marcel and Gill staying in Gayndah to save, I have arrived in my friend Roxannes house to go job hunting and persue my original dream of working and living in Brisbane. The 'global economic super happy fun time' has hit this vast continent and everybody is feeling the pinch. Jobs are available but one recruiter I have been talking to says they have at least five times the applications they would have had a year ago. Add to the fact that a backpacker can only work in one company for six months, and you can see how very difficult it is for us to find work here. Anyway with every twist and turn there's a new adventure, I still have a car, good friends and my health. Who knows where the next road will lead.
EDIT: Since writing this piece I have secured temporary work for five weeks in Brisbane. Good times ahead!
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John Towell
non-member comment
ha ha
Sounds like vitamin C heaven. I worked as a labourer in Brisvegas, for a crowd called Evenco. Money wasn't bad and the 2 blokes who ran it were sound. Vanessa's uncle set me up with them, I'm sure he'd do the same for you. Let me know if your interested. Great blog, keep it coming. What did they call postman Pat after he retired?.. Pat