Trick Or Treat

As irony would have it, Halloween Eve turned out to be more of a nightmare for me than Halloween itself.

After getting accidentally hammered, I proceeded to have a panic attack when a friend jumped out at me from behind a door, I was looking for a kebab before we'd even left the house, I made my friends (who have already booked to live with me in Sydney) promise they'll actually come and then, just to top it all off, decided to have a nap on the concrete outside my friend's house. And once awakened, I wouldn't listen to any of my friends and instead wailed for our resident hostel mummy, Jo, who finally reasoned with me to lay on the sofa after I refused to go to bed. Just another night on top for for me, there..

I blame stressful farm life pushing me to drink.

But back to my main point, Halloween. Despite it being a pretty big holiday for Americans and Europeans, Australians don't really make a massive deal about it but that wasn't going to stop us. All the hostel residents made such an amazing effort with their outfits, we had an array of felines, pirates, zombies and skeletons amongst many other ghoulish efforts. We even had not one, but two, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Thankfully, I managed to gain control of my alcoholic tendencies and remain on two feet until it was finally bedtime in the early hours. And I got the kebab I'd been so desperate for the night before, totally worth it.

Carnival Cruelty

ROLL UP, ROLL UP... COME ENJOY THE FUN OF THE FAIR!
(Or in my case, come withstand the sheer slave labour working conditions)

You may have seen that I recently worked the weekend at a fair that was travelling through Mildura. Yes, the photos might have looked like I was having the time of my life, working in the sunshine, pulling a few slushies but photos can paint a very deceiving image. I can honestly say that it was a once in a lifetime experience that I'll never be repeating.

Don't get me wrong, the first two days were probably the easiest money I've ever made. I had to wear fluoro, don a Hawaiian lei and cowboy stetson (that threatened to strange me every time the wind blew it off my head and the string wrapped round my throat..) and push sugar filled slushies in decorative bottles to kids. I could put up with the instant glares shot at me by their parents and teachers as they begged for money for an icy treat. Even the absolutely ridiculous tan lines I've gained from working in direct sunshine all day didn't dampen my mood.

But then came Saturday. I was 'promoted' from the slushie stand to the food van. I use the word promoted here very, very loosely. I spent the day dipping disgusting deep fried saviloys, apparently known as Dagwood dogs,  into a massive tub of ketchup and serving them to the rapidly increasing crowd. Alongside these awful sausages, I was also dishing out tubs of hot chips, doughnuts, chiko rolls (yep, I have no idea what these are either), chicken kebab sticks and buckets of fairyfloss, more commonly known to us British folk as candy floss.
Now this might not seem so bad but working a 14 hour day with only a 30 minute break was a killer. There's definitely a few working laws being broken here.. I even had to ask to nip out for literally 2 minutes to go to the loo. Needless to say, when I was finally allowed to leave just after midnight, I was exhausted and probably reeked of chip fat.

On the walk home, I've never been happier to return to a state of unemployment. But on the plus side, thanks to half the hostel bagging jobs at the fair, we did get to go on one of the rides for a totally discounted price, every cloud and all that, eh?

Here me and my fellow burger van girls are pretending we are having the time of our lives so we don't get sacked..

Packing Shed Life

So, after moving hostels (#OldHostel), I was placed in an asparagus packing shed and my god, I genuinely was not prepared for the vast amount of asparagus sticks I'd see everyday. Literally thousands upon thousands of the lanky green vegetable. Worst of all, I don't even like the stuff (in my opinion, it smells and tastes like grass).
But it did pay very well. I felt like withdrawing my first wage in $5 notes and throwing it around my room just like they do in the movies... Until I remembered I live in a hostel and I'd probably lose the majority behind the bunk beds.

I spent my days sorting, packing and then moving the ugly asparagus around the shed. Though it may not sound particularly enthralling, I met some of the best people and they're what get you through the day. I spent so much of my time at work with a grin plastered on my face because of them.

You might notice I'm typing in the past tense.. This is because, annoyingly, Mildura has become unseasonably hot and therefore the asparagus doesn't grow properly and therefore can't be sold, meaning there's nothing for me to sort and pack.
Alas, I'm unemployed once again. I've spent over 2 weeks moping round the hostel as there's only so much sunbathing you can do and only so many times you can traipse around Coles in a week. Thankfully, I'm not the only one in this situation and there's a whole bunch of us spending our evenings drinking out of boredom and our days hungover in the sunshine.

And the plus side of so many people not working? We won a competition at one of the local bars after having the most people from a single hostel in there 2 weeks on the trot and won a $1000 bar tab! Which we promptly drank dry within aprox half an hour.. All with no worries about having to get up the next day!

A few days ago, the fair rolled into town and the majority of the hostel have bagged jobs on rides, ticket booths and food stands so starting tomorrow, carnival life begins for 3 days...

(Here a bunch of us are pre-free mass jagerbomb downing)

New Beginnings

Okay, it's been a while since I've actually updated this but I've had good reason!
After returning home from a two week break in England, I arrived back to the hostel to find it was a hot bed of contempt towards our bosses as nothing had changed whilst I'd been away, we were still earning next to nothing yet still expected to pay rent.

So we did what any rational group of backpackers would do... We staged a mass walk out after finding a new hostel to move to, obviously.
Over the space of 5 days, nearly 20 people abruptly left the hostel. What we didn't realise was that said mass walk out would cause the place to completely close down and the building to be locked up, which probably prompted a sigh of relief from the surrounding neighbours who all hated us and the local police force who were fed up with issuing us with noise complaints.

Not long after moving out, we discovered what we already knew deep down, but dared not think about. We'd been getting mugged off to an even bigger extent than we'd originally suspected. Our bosses were shaving money off the top of everything we earned and sliding it into their wallets before we even knew we'd earned it. Dicks.
Looking back, it was no wonder they were always turning up to the house with crates of VB (vom) and cider for us. It seemed like a treat but it was probably paid for with the cash we never even knew belonged to us.

After moving to the new hostel, our bosses followed us, waiting outside the grounds to try and confront us, even telling staff they were from immigration as a way to get to us. Though turning up drunk, in high-vis tops and mullet hair-dos, god knows who'd believe they were from immigration. Thankfully, the staff knew exactly who they were and under no circumstances were they allowed to get anywhere near us.

On a plus note, life has gotten a lot better since we all moved! I've actually made money and gained a new set of friends who just LOVE hearing tales about the 'oooooold hostel'...
The only downside is we don't have wifi, hence the lack of communication post-England, soz.
I'm currently off work as it's unseasonably hot and the asparagus can't grow (more about that later) so I'm off to laze in the 38 degree sunshine, enjoy your drab Tuesday back home!

(Just for old times sake, here's a photo of the old hostel bunch)

I Got A Brand New Combine Harvester.. (Or To Be More Accurate, A Tractor)

Clearly, life doesn't think I'm being reckless enough already by giving me a quad bike to rag around the farm as this week I've been taking control of a tractor. Yes, a real life farming tractor. I can only imagine many of you wincing at the thought of me controlling such a vehicle. Unfortunately, due to carting round a trailer carrying various wire coils that weigh over 50kgs each, my speed has been limited to one where I can't do much damage even if I wanted to. 

When Laurie and I first arrived in Mildura all those weeks ago, we joked about the potential for any drama happening at the hostel, coining the phrase, 'Farm Dramz,' but up until this week, we've never really had call to use it...

Mid-week, it all kicked off in the hostel. People were planning to strike. Everyone was uncertain about pay and some of them decided to get wasted and plan strike action. Being boring and hoping to stay employed, I refrained from joining the goon pong table and instead spent the evening watching Netflix. 

Until one of the guys at the hostel decided to play the big man after hearing that not everyone was agreeing to the strike. Everyone who knows me knows that I'm not one to shy away from an argument, if something needs saying, I'll be the first to get up and holler the message and this night was no exception. 

After already explaining once that I was going to work and if others wanted to go too, that was totally fine and people who didn't want to go to work could stay at home, the issue just wasn't being let go of. I wasn't going to risk over a month's worth of farm days and potentially losing the contract we had for a day off but it was each individual's decision. This then boiled down to a blazing argument at about 11pm at night outside my bedroom with the afformentioned big man after hearing him still complaining about people going to work before I was bundled into my room by one of the lads who, despite being very drunk, did a very good job at calming me down and amusing me with an anecdote about slave labour and EU regulations.. 

All is well that ends well though, the pay situation was explained and we didn't lose the contract, hooray! 

Totally Unrelated

I'm a massive fan of cheese jokes and I spotted this on a sandwich board outside a store in Mildura. Enjoy! 

Driving Me Wild

We currently have a new job! It's shit but this is farm work, nobody promised me it would be exciting. I won't bore you too much with the details but we're basically rebuilding the structure that grape vines are wrapped around. See, super riveting stuff. 

But, on the plus side, someone clearly has a sense of danger as I've been allowed to DRIVE a vehicle! Yep, I don't actually own a UK license but as we're on private land, letting me loose on a blue, 4 wheel drive quad, that I've affectionately named Henry. Granted, I can hardly zip around the farm as I'm driving round a pretty hefty trailer but it's still the most fun thing I've done on a farm yet. 

I have, however, lost any dignity that I may have remaining (insert joke here about how I didn't actually have any dignity left anyway) as, due to a lack of toilet facilities on the farm, I've had to pee behind a massive twig pile recently. This is coming from a girl who, despite being a festival regular, refuses to use anything other than a portaloo when surviving in the great outdoors. Luckily, I've only had to resort to such behaviour once and that was shameful enough, thankyou very much. 

As I write this, I only have a week before I take a short break from my farm work expedition to make a fleeting 13 day visit home and I genuinely could not be more excited! Whilst I'm not looking forward to not having anyone to chat to in my bedroom in the morning when I wake up (travelling makes you actually enjoy sharing a room with God knows how many people, who'd have thought!?), I cannot wait to use my beautiful, clean bathroom back home without having someone knock on the door wanting a wee!