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We’re fast-forwarding now, from where I ended the last one, at the beginning of September, to where we currently reside, at the very start of 2009.
To fill in those blanks quickly, we worked up the coast from Sydney to our northernmost point, Cairns, and then flew down to Melbourne, on November 26th.
Upon reaching Melbourne we were in what can only be described as a dire financial situation. A 5-day hire of a campervan in the Cairns area had wiped out my bank funds and Jemma’s had gone a while before that. With this at the very forefront of our minds, we spent one night in Melbourne and then went at the job-hunting hard. By 3pm the next day we were on a train out to the Yarra Valley, an oasis of fresh fruit farms and nurseries about an hour to the east of Melbourne. Three days later we began a job on a family farm, sorting cherries. It sounds rather dull but in comparison with packing avocados and tomatoes (both jobs we worked midway up the east coast) it was like a holiday! Plus the fact that we had some fun colleagues and a very fair and considerate boss helped enormously. Days of sorting at the farm started at 0800 and went on until about 1630, 4 days a week. Unfortunately what we made from this only just covered what we were spending in rent at the hostel, food, and pocket money to save. So after a quick chat with Michael, the chief farmer, we agreed to pick cherries on the days we didn’t sort cherries. This turned out to be a great idea in theory, but in practise, when we turned up to start picking at 0600 the first day, it was not very nice at all! Apparently all the full-time pickers started at 0530 but we soon found out that this was a myth, especially when it had been raining all night and the branches of the trees were more heavily laden with water than they were with cherries! Anyhow, we powered through our first morning of picking, arms wet right up to the elbows, soaking wet feet and thoroughly cold. Cherry picking work is paid according to the quantity of cherries you as an individual pick, and that morning we made about $70. Not great, but not terrible either, especially considering we jacked it in at noon to go home for a hot shower and some mashed potato! All in all, the job was brilliant; we had some good laughs with our colleagues, got heaps better at picking (helped a great deal by the good varieties of trees ripening later in the season), and made friends with the dog! Jet is a working dog, a cherry dog who hoovers up any dropped cherries in the sorting shed, and makes sure that the pickers staying on-site are up on time for work.
The hostel that we stayed in Silvan was more of a shared house than a hostel, the hostel owners having clearly realised that they could make a lot more money by diving the house up into dorm rooms, sticking in some bunkbeds and charging each individual $150 per week each as opposed to letting out the house for maybe $350 per week. The facilities were basic: one shower and toilet shared between 14, no locks on doors, no bedding supplied and one room with only a curtain as a wall and door, but everybody banded together to make the best of the situation. Most evenings after tea we watched films on a huge projector or learnt myriad different card and dice games. Not to mention practised our French, German, Dutch, Western Australian…!
Just a word on the weather, one word: RAIN! It honestly felt like Wales. Sure, summer in Wales, but it just rained and rained and was windy. One weekend we had so much rain that most of the cherry farms in the area gave up their crops. Luckily our farmer took the decision to pick his cherries so there was work for us right up until December 23rd, but for a couple of days we were living in a slight state of panic and almost made a couple of rash decisions to fly out to Perth before Christmas.
Our original plan for Christmas was to hire a campervan and drive along the Great Ocean Road and then the road to Adelaide for perhaps a week or so. However, vehicle rental companies are b******s and do everything to prevent anyone hiring a vehicle of any kind for fewer than 14 days during the "peak season" making it totally unfeasible for us to do so. So instead, we booked a room in a guesthouse in Melbourne for 3 days, because the thought of waking up in a hostel room with 8 strangers on Christmas Day didn’t really appeal. So to Melbourne and a great guesthouse in South Yarra, apparently an upmarket suburb. The guesthouse, the Clarendon, can only be described as "where your mum would stay". It had huge wide red-carpeted corridors, fancy mirrors and paintings of flowers on the walls and a grand staircase. It was 100m from the metro train line which itself took about 10 minutes to get right into the heart of Melbourne. We arrived on Christmas Eve and after dumping our bags we were faced with the daunting task of completing all Christmas shopping; presents for each other, as neither of us would be receiving anything from anyone else, and the food we wanted for our Christmas Day picnic. First stop was Victoria Markets, an amazing 1940s type of market full of delis selling everything you could ever want for a picnic; French bries, Australian Camemberts, Greek olives, Spanish chorizo, felafal, a thousand types of bread, fresh meat and fish, vegetables galore… As you can imagine we overran the allocated time for this part of the shopping! After that all that was left was present shopping.
On the eve of Christmas Eve we went to the carols and readings service at one of Melbourne’s largest cathedrals, St Paul’s, and then back home to wrap presents and get to sleep before Father Christmas visited.
Christmas Day we spent laughing at the fact that we’d bought each other TWO of the same things, one of which was Bill Bryson’s Down Under. We also had our picnic of goodies at Brighton Beach thanks to the trains running for free on Christmas Day (and Eve).
December 27th and it was time to depart Melbourne, which had done itself a great many favours in our eyes and was vying for the title of Favourite Aussie City So Far with Sydney. Transport out of Melbourne was the Overland train, to Adelaide. It was 10 hours of travel through a rather dull and dry landscape, punctuated by stops at equally as dull country towns. There’s nothing bad to say about the train whatsoever; it was cheaper than taking a coach and took only the same amount of time. Now for the fun part.
Before Christmas I had been in email contact with the Pelhams, family friends from way back in the UK who have been out in Aus for 40 something years. I had planned to see them whilst in Adelaide, even if only for a meal one evening, and had told them the details of our arrival in Adelaide and then not had the chance to check my email again before departing for Adelaide. Upon rolling into the train station at Adelaide, 2 hours later than scheduled (maybe the bus would’ve been quicker after all), when Jemma told me that she’d just spotted a lady stood on the platform with a sign with our names on I could only assume that it was Anne Pelham. Anne and I hadn’t seen each other since she and Pat were last in the UK, 7 years ago, but when I approached her on the platform we recognised each other instantly. She had received my email and replied to say that they would pick us up and give us somewhere to stay for all of the 23 hours we were to be in Adelaide, but of course I hadn’t seen it. So we (well, Jemma drew the short straw) hurriedly cancelled the hostel we’d booked for the night and jumped in the car with Anne and Pat, who had come to the station to meet the train’s supposed arrival time, gone home to eat their first course, and then come back to meet us when the train actually arrived. We were made amazingly welcome by Anne and Pat, who showed us the best places to see the following day in our limited time, and arranged for us to meet their daughter and granddaughter for lunch before putting us back on the train. Adelaide greatly exceeded by expectations, and I would definitely go back.
The next leg of our journey took us from Adelaide to Perth on The Indian Pacific, the train that takes 3 days to chug from Sydney to Perth. It is meant to be one of the world’s great train journeys and includes the longest straight stretch of railroad in the world. To get the cheap tickets, we had to opt for the Red Kangaroo Service which meant 40 plus hours of sitting upright in a seat. At first this didn’t look too excruciating, until we realised that we were surrounded on two sides by yobs from Kalgoorlie discussing how many cars they’d stolen, how many prisons they’d been in, and the size of their girlfriends’ boobs. Lovely. There were lots of other crazy people on the train too, talking about eagles being dangerous to those wearing white (because they may mistake you for a lamb) and wanting everyone’s email addresses.
The journey itself was pretty incredible, travelling through endless hours of nothing really does give you an appreciation of how vast this country really is. And there was the odd herd of camels, bouncing kangaroo, or soaring eagle to look out for too.
FINALLY, after what seemed like days and days on the train, we pulled into Perth to be greeted by real friends from the UK and to begin a few days of normality in the suburbs.
Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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