Week 12 – 5th Feb – 11th Feb

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The first day of the week saw us finishing at 1230 for fear of melting in the unforgiving Australian sun! I’m aware that this is beginning to become a bit of a theme, but this is the hottest month of the year and let me tell you, it’s a bit toasty! I went to the doctor in the afternoon because my leg was still mildly buggered, which is never cool. Basically, I could feel the most outer layer of skin, but it was as if just beneath the surface it was dead. There was no discolouration, so I assumed the blood flow was ok - I thought I must have trapped a nerve or something. This odd sensation went from just below my right knee down to my big toe and was making me walk like a spaz (apologies to anyone who finds that an incorrect word to use, but it’s funny!). I thought I’d get it checked as I didn’t really fancy having any long-term problems with it. Upon arriving at the doctor’s, I went through to the physiotherapist. I then realised that I would have to pay about $80 (£32) just for seeing the physio, and even then I didn’t know if the consultation would be successful. The doctor’s charge was $45, most of which I would be able to claim, but in all honesty I simply didn’t want to pay! The British NHS might come in for a lot of criticism, but at least you can go and talk to your GP for free! The funniest thing about this episode was when I lifted my leg up on to the receptionist’s desk (as one does) to explain what the problem was, I went a pulled my bloody groin! This was not my day! In the end, I decided to wait another day to see if it got better. I bought some deep heat, thinking that that might magically kick-start stuff working again, and the next day, Tuesday, it seemed to be a bit better.

The only other thing that happened today was that both Tom and Jay started working at the vineyard, which was cool. Due to the unavailability of work, they had both been unemployed for a few days and because a couple of people had left the vineyard there were two slots available. They had both had harder jobs previously - Tom had been especially unlucky with his last two jobs. One of his jobs in a packing shed had taken its toll and he’d buggered his elbow from shifting heavy boxes of apples. When he left, his one position was filled by three Korean guys! Some of the places here really do ty to get their money’s worth out of you, that’s for sure, and it’s inevitable that some people’s bodies feel the strain from the relentless hard slog. So they came to the vines for some less back-breaking work!

Wednesday presented me with my next body malfunction. I got a bloody sty on the underside of my left eye. I think a bit of dust or something had got in it at work and I had irritated it by rubbing it - something you know you shouldn’t do but just can’t help yourself! After a day or two, I invested in some antiseptic eye drops, which soothed it immediately, much to my relief. Thursday marked the 12-week point of our travels - exactly a third of our time here had now passed. When we got picked up after work to go back to the hostel, we were warned that Gary the nutter had had a couple of drinks. This was not good news. Gary’s a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who’s a bit simple, to put it bluntly. He’d decided to stop taking hi medication because he said it made him fat. He decided to prescribe himself speed and other stuff instead. He’s spent years doing all sorts of drugs and had been put in this hostel for reasons unknown to us. We think the authorities simply can’t be arsed to help him out and are trying to wash their hands of him, which is bang out of order. The last place this guy needs to be is in a backpackers’ hostel were there lots of beer - that’s the thing that makes him turn, and it’s not pretty. Admittedly it was quite amusing for an hour or so, and then he turned into a complete arse. He ended up punching a fellow nutter (another mixed-up guy had just moved in) because he spilled his drink. It took three blokes to stop him running after him - I did good standing in front of the door to make sure he didn’t get out. He punched a hole in the wall instead and then sat there whimpering in a comedy fashion and asked if anyone had a plaster for his cut knuckle! Anyway, that was that.

Fortunately, it was the end of my working week as on Friday I jumped on a bus destined for Adelaide to meet a friend for the weekend. It was nice to get away for a couple of days and go to the beach. I had become so accustomed to there being a beach with half-an-hour or so that it seemed wrong not having one to go to in Loxton! Glenelg beach, 30 minutes on the tram from Adelaide, was where we spent most of Saturday ‘admiring the scenery’ (and my word there was a lot of cracking scenery!). In the evening, we met up with Fred and Fabi for a few beers as they had left Loxton on Saturday morning. It was a pretty tame night as everywhere was really busy and queued-up, which was a pain. At least it didn’t end up being an expensive one though. My bus left at 1730, so we had lots of time to kill. In lieu of anything else to do - there really is bugger-all to do in Adelaide! - we went to the zoo. It was fun, but I always tend to feel zoos are a rather unfair place for animals to be kept - they must be bored shitless, just for us to look at. But it was cool watching the gorillas’, lions’, leopard’s, pelicans’ and little penguins’ feeding times.

I reckon the meerkats were the funniest (apart from the annoying little Turkish kid who decided to feed them crisps, in spite of the signs forbidding this, while his father looked on as if there was nothing wrong). A gang of them in your garden would be well funny! They’re just ace! The miniature penguins were equally comedic. I have to say that the two lions were the coolest though - I think I’d like to be lion when I’m older. They’re just hard and cool and stuff. Unfortunately the male had died a few weeks previously but the females were still awesome. Even better then that was the huge, massive, great big pieces of beef that they’d been giving and were promptly tearing apart. Feeling rather envious and mildly peckish we went to go and eat! And with a full stomach, I boarded the bus and headed back to Loxton.

It turned out that I had missed quite an eventful weekend. On Sunday, it was the birthday of one of the English lads, Andy, who’s going out with one of the Korean girls. The day before, the Koreans had labouriously made a beautiful chocolate birthday cake and had put it in the fridge overnight to surprise him the next day. In the morning, they went to the fridge to find it missing. This went down like a shit sandwich, so they went to tell Rob, the hostel manager, who said that the only thing for it was to search everyone’s room. It turned up on Gary the nutter’s floor with a decent-sized piece missing. Whoops. He denied ever stealing it, accusing people of setting him up. There were lots of theories as to what had happened, but the fact was there it was on his floor, ruined. If I had made it, I’d have knocked the guy spark-out, so one can imagine how the Koreans felt. Apparently all the Koreans threw their flip-flops at him, which must have been well funny. He was wanting to have a crack at Won Chul and Dong Hun, which would have been a big mistake methinks! Fortunately they didn’t rise to it and Gary was promptly told to pack his bags. The last we heard was that his sister had giving him some food and a swag and he was living rough down at the river. So now nobody knows where he is and in the state he was in, I reckon he’s a bit of a danger. But I’m sure the authorities couldn’t care less. I feel for him in a way, but he’s still a nutcase! Quite an eventful morning really. Luke was apparently pissed-off at the situation for some reason - he took Gary’s side and was quoted as saying that if he had been awake while all the commotion was going on then there’d have been broken noses. He was implying that he would have punched the two hardest Koreans I’m ever likely to meet! Dick! So that was the end of the week but nobody realised how much this odd mood of Luke’s would affect next week.

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