We arrived here with high hopes of finding some farm work, but no such luck. When we got here we checked into a hostel called Cellblock Backpackers. This hostel used to be a holding cell for prisoners back in the day, and has now been converted into a hostel. For me, it felt similar to being in an insane asylum. There is one long hallway where most of the rooms were, then all the walls were white. The plus side was that there was a pool and a bar there and the people we met were pretty cool. Otherwise, it was pretty gross. After a day we checked out and checked into another hostel called Federal Backpackers. It's a lot more colorful, but it's still a dump. We saw a mouse in the kitchen...disgusting.
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| Cellblock, the first hostel |
The way it works is that the hostels here assign you to a farm to work at and a van comes and picks everyone up in the morning and takes them to the farms. Since everyone heard that Bundaberg is the place to go if you are looking for farm work, there was an overplus of people and not enough work so there were long waiting lists at each hostel we talked to. In order to be put on the list you have to book your stay at the hostel for at least one week, and there's no guarantee that you will get work soon. Even when you do get work, before you are put on a contract you might only be getting 2 or 3 days of work per week, which isn't really enough. We also talked to a hostel that told us they had work for us and to come visit them in the morning to discuss it. When we arrived there, there was noone at reception and this French guy came out and told us not to book there because they told him and his friends that there was work as well, but once they got there they booked a week and they still hadn't worked yet and had been there for about five days. Scam artists!
After talking it over if it was worth it to stay, we decided we should leave. No point sticking around wasting accommodation money if there is no guarantee of getting a job for awhile. We got online and started applying for several jobs and called this farmer a few hours away from Brisbane, but he said he just recently filled some positions but to call him on Monday to see if he has anymore openings. Back when we were in Brisbane an Irish guy staying in my room gave me a number to this lady named Sue who does strawberry picking. We decided it was worth a shot to call her and sure enough she had positions for us! You may think this sounds promising, but the thing is, there are many many downfalls to this job offer. She mentioned at least three times throughout the phone call that this wasn't going to be easy work and that we weren't picking, we were planting the strawberry seeds.
Sue said she would send us an email of the job description and we could talk it over and get back to her about it. She seemed like a really nice lady, but once we got the job description we were pretty weary. Highlights of the email include:
- $40-$45 per every 1,000 seeds we plant (Is that a joke?)
- $165 per week for accommodation and food is not included
- The nearest grocery store is 15 kilometres away so we have to pay $5 for a ride to town
- $100 deposit at the beginning and must work for 1 month in order to get our deposit back
- A direct quote: "This is backbreaking work, if you have any back problems this job is not for you. The first four days you will be very sore and tired, but after that you shouldn't feel anymore pain." ---WTF???!
- We don't get work everyday. Some weeks we may work 4 days straight then have 3 days off or work 2 days then 5 days off, it's unpredictable
After looking this over and exchanging a few "this sounds terrible" looks, we thought we wouldn't really be actually making any money there. The hours are unpredictable and we still have to pay for accommodation and we are only making $45 for every 1,000 plants we plant soooo I don't know... We thought on it half the day then called Sue back to ask a few more questions. She said that we are in groups of 4 and that if you are good, groups usually average around 5,000 plants per day. We told her of our concerns of not really saving any money and just breaking even or even losing money while we were there and she said that we shouldn't lose any money and that if we are then she would let us leave with our deposit back. We decided that we would get back to her about it on Monday or Tuesday and we decided to keep it in mind as a last resort. In the meantime we are going to go back down to the Sunshine Coast, which is about an hour from Brisbane and stay there for 3 days. During those 3 days we are going to look for other options of work and hope to God that something better comes along.
Today we booked our train tickets to a town called Maroochydore (Mar-oo-chi-door), so at least now we can get the heck out of Bundaberg and hopefully have a few more job opportunities there. If not, then Sue can welcome us into her personal hell.
While it is kind of stressful figuring all of this job stuff out, I do appreciate that it's all in the experience and I love how spontaneous everything has been. In situations like this, you really just have to roll with the punches and hope for the best! As for tonight, we are going to the bar downstairs and celebrating our Bundaberg departure off of the Happy Hour $5 pitchers from 8-10 pm :).
Cheers
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