The Job Hunt!!

So after 9 good weeks of partying, exploring and generally having a right old time of it we thought (our bank accounts decided for us) that it was about time to get our ass into gear and look for jobs! what follows is not a pretty story but you may see the funny side!

A week of rejection in Sydney. I was in recruitment agency after recruitment agency, admittidly i was possibly being a slight bit picky at the start of the week but by the end of it i was annoyed at every rejection or the very fact that people don't respond to yiour appplication atall. Stephen and Gary were also on the road to nowhere. Stephen had got 21 numbers for people with trades sent to him by a Gealic team in Sydney and not one of them had work. It was time to re-think our plan (which was to find work ASAP). We found a saviour in a girl called Grainne from Ireland who ran a hostel and got work for us on banana farms outside Cairns......

What a great opertunity to experience the REAL Australia, while all working togehter earning the great money that Grainne promised us!!! We arrived after a 3 hour flight costing 310dollars, an hour bus ride, and a short minibus journey to the biggest s***hole on this earth. We were handed 2 sheets a pillowcase, a pillow a knife, fork, spoon, bowl and plate. I felt like i'd traded in the coolest city in the world for a jail like existance. I wasnt too far wrong. I cried all night friday. We were in a room with 6 dorm beds with 3 smelly men. One of them has been there 3 months and absolutely stinks (he was in the bunk below me)!!! The one kitchen caters for the 60 people that live there, 2 smelly fridges for 60 people! Don't stop reading i'm just getting started. The weekend passed without to many big suprises. There was another fella from Kilkeel in the hostel so we actually had a bit of craic and we were looking foward to getting some work and lining the old pockets again!

WORK. Fruit picking. Romantic picture of climbing up a tree, sun shinning having the craic with the person climbing the tree next to you as you pick the fruit from the tree and place it in the little bag that you have around your shoulder! WRONG. Cyclone, rainey season, heavy banans, a lot of water, and to top it all off no-one else talks. They don't get the fact that they are in Oz for the "the craic" and the farmers they defnitly hate "the craic". My horror story began with a conveyor belt of massive bunches of banana in water needing sorted (broke up into smaller bunches and picking out the bad banans)! The farmer behind me all the time telling me i was doing it wrong - how wrong can taking off a black banana be?!!!! My horror story ended in a sprained wrist day two of my stint in the farm. Grainne took a dislike to me because i have weak wrists and never gave me any more work! What ever happened to looking after "your own"?!

I have to admit Stephen and Gary had it rough too. They got the farm that only had three days a week work available (as its cyclone season). They were standing in Banana fields, up to their knees - literally in muck as they got to grips with "fruit picking"! Humping Bananas can only be descirbed as having atleast 80KG balancing on your shoulder while you try to find the trailor to offload while trying to avoid rats, snakes, crocs and spiders! Stephen sat in muck on his first day on lunch with 5 aboriginies, a welsh man and a Jap and the only thing they had in common were banans. Needless to say we lasted until Friday and Stephen and I still havent got paid for our hard labour!

And so the job hunt continues....We are currently in Cairns annoying every recruitment agency that will listen. I have applied for Donut King....if i don't get that job I might have to acknowledge that working in Oz just isnt for me!!!!!