Thursday 2 June 2016

A quick update – oranges, crabs, and phone books

For those who were left in suspense after reading my last blog post, here's a brief update. Joe and I arrived at the orange farm just outside Gayndah, and were inducted, told briefly how to cut oranges from a tree and use a ladder, and then were left to work the rest of the day. It was a fun day. Wait, no, I meant I'd rather backstroke through a swimming pool full of used syringes than pick oranges ever again. The pay was not worth the effort - $80 per full bin (bins roughly 1.5m wide x 1.5m long x 1m deep. I got 1 bin finished in the whole 9 hours, though Joe had to help me at the end. I was both shocked and impressed by the French lads we were working with, who smashed through it while smoking cigarettes like a belt fed machine gun. Fair play to people that do this, and I appreciate oranges a lot more. Needless to say, we didn't stay for the next day to find out how different lemon picking is.

We then ran away to the nearest beach, which happened to be Hervey Bay, a two hour drive away. We immediately fell in love with the place, as our caravan site had friendly staff and an even friendlier backpacker rate, meaning it was just $15 (£7.50) for the two of us for a night. We met a friendly possum who lived in the camp kitchen. 



And of course, we checked out the beach. At this time of year (autumn) it is relatively quiet, but still a nice 25 degrees every day, with a sea temperature of 21. A stroll along the beach finds us chasing armies of cute little crabs, who fascinated us with their artwork as they speedily create millions of tiny balls of sand in patterns on the beach.

As we loved Hervey Bay so much, we decided to stay once we found a temporary job delivering phone books – which brings us to where we are now. The aim is to make enough bucks to go to Fraser Island, give Hodor (the van) a bit of TLC, and continue on our travels. As someone who only runs when they're being chased, let me tell you, nothing gets you jogging more than delivering in Australia, where space is abundant and the houses aren't so close together!

Tl;dr I'm still alive and didn't get eaten by a giant spider.

So anyway, that's all for now folks, cheerio!

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