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. 

Drama In Mildura

Believe it or not, Mildura actually experiences drama every now and then! I know, I was shocked too.

In the hostel, we all live for Saturday nights. It's the only night we all let loose and drink as much goon as we can before the taxi arrives to pick us up. We head to the same place most weekends, it's free entry, the drinks are cheap and the music's pretty good. 

But this weekend was a bit more dramatic than most, it all kicked off pretty early on with punches and glasses being thrown aplenty. Apparently one of the poor girls behind the bar ended up on the receiving end of one of the glasses! 

From what we could gather, a bunch of guys from one of the other hostels in Mildura kicked off, for whatever reason, at pretty much anyone who might have a go back. There were bouncers everywhere and the police were drafted in resulting in the whole night being shut down and everyone wandering the streets wondering where the hell else in Mildura you could buy a vodka at 12:30.

We ended up in a bar where a guy dressed as SpongeBob SquarePants seemed to be the main form of entertainment, I kid you not. 

And I didn't even get a kebab on the way home, Laurie and I were pretty much devestated when we got home and realised all we had was toast. 

Sunday was spent down by the river that splits Victoria & New South Wales (miss you, Sydney!) in what turned out to be a surprisingly warm and sunny day considering it's now winter out here! My friends spent the afternoon fishing for, or at least trying to, the carp that swim in the waters whilst trying to avoid the various pelicans and ducks that sit atop the water. 

After various snapped lines and false alarms, one of the boys actually caught a HUGE fish. He offered it out to me to hold but I politely declined, slimy sea creatures totally aren't my thing!

And in the blink of an eye, the weekend was over and a whole week of work lay between us and alcohol once more. Considering how often I've thought I hated Mildura, sitting by the river when the sun sets was actually pretty decent (despite how bloody cold it became, I could barely feel my feet!)

 

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.. 

Alive & Kicking

I So I'm nearly a week into my farm work and, believe it or not, I haven't screamed once. 

And this isn't a ghostwriter typing, it's actually me and I haven't actually died from fright yet.

I mean, I haven't seen any snakes or spiders yet but I have seen two caterpillars and various snails and that's more than enough wildlife for me so far. 

So what's Mildura like? It's genuinely a lot bigger than I expected it to be! In my mind, I saw a tiny town with nothing to do whereas, in reality, there's actually a fair amount here. You've got your regular Australian fashion stores; Cotton On, Factorie, Dotti and everyone's favourite, cheap and cheerful K-Mart. And there's the usual fast food suspects; McDonalds, Subway, Dominos and various kebab joints to hit once you've visited one of the 4 bar/clubs in the town. 

But in terms of farm work, I'm spending my days pruning and rolling grape vines. It's not hard work but it's about as exciting as spending a Saturday night in by yourself without wifi. We're meant to be moving onto oranges in the next couple of weeks which has piqued my fear that there might be tarantulas in the trees obviously just waiting to jump out and bite me when I reach out to grab an orange. But that's probably me being irrational, let's hope.. 

You can see how impressed I am by farm work below. I'm having a whale of a time. Only 81 days to go!

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.