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)

Getting Lost

The past week hasn't been great for us girls when it comes to work. We worked too fast on our previous farm and caught up with the vine pruners meaning we had nothing left to roll onto the wires. You can't win here, sacked if you're not good enough or running out of work because you're too good! So we had about 60% of last week off with no way of earning any money.

As you can imagine, we got very bored of staying in the house all day. Turns out there are only so many films you can watch in front of the cosy fire everyday. And Mildura isn't known for being the entertainment capital of Australia so our options of things to do were very limited..

We ended up at a giant maze. It cost us $2 and actually turned out to be a lot of fun, I kid you not. Situated about a 10 minute drive from Mildura town centre, it's attached onto Woodsies Gem Shop, a small store selling every kind of gem in various forms of trinkets, ornaments and jewellery. How does that relate to a giant maze? I have absolutely no idea. 

9 of us headed into the maze and ended up splitting into 4 teams and I'm slightly ashamed to say I didn't win. But I did come second which isn't the end of the world. For someone like me, who tries to complete pretty much any task in life as efficiently as possible, the maze drove me insane. I was cursing like a sailor as I took more than enough wrong turns and ended up in the same spot yet again, much to everybody's amusement. The boys were last to traipse out though which was a boost for girl power!

Thankfully, we are on a new job now so we aren't scouring TripAdvisor for things to do or crawling the walls with boredom anymore but we are still pauper poor until we get paid so that's always fun. Who knows, I might find a natural skill on the next farm?! Jokezzzzz.

It's Happened, I've Screamed

It's day 11 and the inevitable has finally happened, I saw a scary spider. And I screamed. 

Two of the girls and I spent the day gardening and the monstrous creature appeared from under a pile of leaves. As soon as I spotted it, I threw my tools to the ground, screamed and legged it to the other end of the garden wailing at the girls to kill it. Totally appropriate adult behaviour. 

I'd normally add a photo onto every post but funnily enough, I wasn't going to stand around and take a photo of the hideous 8 legged beast. And I'm certainly not googling, "spider" for a stock image as I'll probably end up peeing myself. Soz. 

Spoke Too Soon

I blogged yesterday about how I was still managing to function like a normal human being whilst working on the farm. I clearly spoke too soon as today I could have easily thrown down my tools, told the farmer to do one and jumped on a plane back to city civilisation. 

Don't get me wrong, I had my reasons for throwing a complete wobbly, I'm not totally unstable.

For starters, I'm experiencing yet ANOTHER eye infection out here, the fourth in almost as many months which is extremely frustrating. And working in the blazing sunshine with an eye infection is nobody's idea of fun, it basically burns your eye ball and has you tearing up like a toddler constantly. Plus, I was the slowest girl on the farm today which, for a crazy competitive person like me, could probably drive you clinically insane.

Whilst wrapping vine upon vine round metal wires today, I continuously had the thought that 88 days of this wasn't worth a second year in Australia. But then rational, grown-up me gave childish, tantrum prone me a good talking to and I'll be heading back to work tomorrow.

So, it's only day 7 and I've already had my first thoughts about giving up. 81 more days of this is going to be a piece of cake.. 

I Can't Think Of A Worse Profession For You

I had people taking bets on whether I'd even come to Australia when I first announced I was jacking in my job, house and stable lifestyle 6 months ago. Lo and behold, I filled my rucksack and here I am, still alive and just about functioning. However my sunny bubble of a life in Sydney is about to be dramatically popped.

For English backpackers, if you want to stay in Australia for longer than your allocated year, you have to undertake 88 days of work in a rural postcode. This can be agricultural, construction or fruit picking work, all of which sound about as much fun as chopping my leg off with a blunt spoon.

So, somehow, I've ended up booking a flight to Mildura, just west of Melbourne and basically in the middle of nowhere. Sounds fabulous, right? I know you're all super jealous of my adventure right now. Apparently I'm going to be picking citrus fruits and pruning vines.. All whilst on a farm no doubt covered in jumbo sized spiders and poisonous snakes. Sounds just like a spa weekend.

Upon telling one of my friends at home, he commented, 'You're going to die. I can't think of a worse profession for you.' So that bodes well. Another asked me to live blog my traumatic adventures on the farm, which provided another of my amused friends (who has the enjoyment of coming to the farm with me) with the idea of setting up a YouTube channel documenting my hard time in the country declaring, 'We'll make you a YouTube star!'

Am I even a little bit excited for this new experience? Absolutely not. But I'll try my best to not have a panic attack on the first day and end up in the hospital and keep you updated on the experience.

I'm not religious but my god, please all pray for my safety and/or sanity.