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The sand has been white, the sea's clear and the goon has flowed but this will be our last entry from the land of Australia!!! It has been full of up's (Byron Bay, Fraser Island, Steve Irwin's Zoo etc) but it has also had its downs (trying to find a bed or wheels during the whole fortnight around xmas and new year, and rude - generally middle aged - australians!! Including one grumpy git who Sarah had to sit next to on the bus down to Brisbane!!) but all in all it has been really good fun.
We are already working out when to come back so we can do the rest of the East coast from Brisbane to Cairns, but with a little more money as we missed out on the Great Barrier Reef, Whitsundays etc but is just an excuse to return!!!
The last few days we have spent in a beach city (although to you and I it is more like a town) called Maroochydore, affectionately renamed MaroochyBORE!!!! It was THE most boring place we have been to!!! Despite having a relatively nice beach and a decent riverside mall it had no life whatsoever, and the 4/5 days really dragged, especially as we were just ticking down the time to our flight to NZ. The hostel was lifeless as well which didnt really help, but on the up side, it had hammocks!!! Oh yes, i spent nearly all week in a constant state of slumber beside the pool!! And even Sarah had to join me, as there was nothing to do!!!!
The biggest surprise however I am yet to bestwo upon you. Now our folks have already received the news (mum, dad i hope you have regained consciousness again) but Sarah and I have recently done a days work!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH ITS TRUE!!!!!! IT HURTS BUT IT IS TRUE!!!! We got chatting to a lady at the hostel who said that a nearby winery contacted her to see if there was any backpackers looking for some work, she hadnt had much luck so she asked us.
I think Maroochybore had such an effect on us that we (rather promptly) obliged!! So on Wednesday we woke up at 4.30 AM!! Jumped into a beaten up 100 yr old minibus which i had to drive 40 mins to our destination with a couple of European girls as well (the bus was so old the gearstick came out of the steering column underneath where our indicators normally are [over here the indicators and wipers are the wrong way around] so every time you try and stuff it into 2nd gear you set the wipers off!!!
Anyway, we arrived on time and unscathed ready for our days work. The ppl who owned the winery were the grumpiest and most miserable ppl ever!! however the other pickers were fine, so we spent the next 6.5 hrs with a pair of secateers each cutting bunches of grapes off the vines, scraping any rotten ones from the bunch or picking any that had been pecked by birds and throwing them away. All of this would not have been too bad had they been nice clean green grapes - but oh no!! they were deep coloured black grapes - much to Sarah's avail as she wore her nice pale grey t-shirt!! A few hours later we had just about had enough of the sweltering heat, spiders crawling all over our arms, flying cockroaches launching themselve from our grapes, and we were done!!
NEVER AGAIN!! We did get $104 for our troubles (about 40 quid) so all in all it was a good time waster. Sarah even agreed about 2 hrs later when she had managed to scrub the grape juice from her clothes after more time slaving away over a sink.
We have pulled our flight back now so we leave for NZ on sunday!! Just trying to book some accommodation now which is not going too well!!
catch you soon in kiwi land!!!
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