Bundaberg

HA! Well that lasted long!

I left Brisbane after a quick dawdle at Peter Pans, getting on the Premier bus up to Bundaberg. Katja had brilliantly done the maths for my bus telling me that leaving at 2pm and arriving at 11pm would mean a 7 hour bus journey and i didn't question it until I was sat on the bus realising I still had 7 hours after travelling for 2!
I was greeted by Marie, the owner of the house I would be staying at while I worked on the farm. She seemed kindly enough, making small talk in a slow manner. I was pretty tired after the bus journey and only really noted that she was listening to some punk rock on the radio. As I walked into her house, very much like a large version of my aunt and uncle's shack at Box Hill, all I could smell was weed. The layout was pretty open plan, a large room partly seperated by sofas or cupboards into a utility area, kitchen, dining area and living room. The other residents of her house were three French lads who were all practically comatose from smoking bongs in the living room. It was like walking back into my house from my second year of uni! Apparently Marie smoked a lot in the house and didn't object to anyone else doing so. I was instantly ill-at-ease whilst in the house and in the company of these people. I spoke with them for a short while, hearing how difficult it was to pick courgettes - the heat, the back-breaking work, the possibility of dying from dehydration (which had happened to a girl not far from Bundaberg the previous week).
After a relatively warm sleep in a decent enough double bed I woke up thinking that the day might have something in store for me. I was wrong. I literally spent the whole day watching TV amongst the hazy bubble of weed and tobacco smoke that filled the house. I was pretty much held prisoner as when I asked to use the car to go and get some groceries I was denied such a commodity and told I could wait until the next day because Marie had something important to do with the car (buying weed was that important thing).
The 4am wake up was pretty damned hard as I must say but I managed it and got to the farm for 4.50 ready to start work. The farmer, Shane, was not the most welcoming, informing the new starters how easy the work was but that it would take a good, hard worker to succeed and also taking the piss out of me for being English. I can say no more about the work apart from that it was by far and a way the WORST job I have ever done in my life; worse than litter picking for 12 hours a day due to the lack of redeeming factors such as nice people and bands playing music. I say this yet I did manage to meet a couple of nice lads from England, one from Derby and the other from Manchester, who I spent a while chatting to during my more lazy portions of the day - something I was later told was against the rules as someone had been fired for talking to others too much earlier that week. I was relieved to have the day cut short by 40 minutes at 11.20 and was looking forward to relaxing a bit. I took the car that afternoon and headed for the town to run some errands for Marie under the pretense I was going to buy some food and go to the Post Office. I ended up on the phone sorting my trips out of there. Luckily enough the next day I could get on the Oz Ex bus from Bundy and head up to Airlie Beach with a stop at the Town of 1770 and Kroombit, then going out on my Whitsunday trip on the following Tuesday. I cannot describe the relief of knowing I was going to be away from that place for Xmas and not having to work on that shitty farm. I returned in the best mood I had been in since I had thought I had found a job! I explained I would be leaving to Marie, omitting the fact I would rather die than live in that house and made a quite phoencall to Shane the farmer. Our conversation was short and not so sweet, he told me he thought I looked a bit of a girl after my first day, which pleased me greatly knowing that I wasn't going to be working for a belligerent retard inbred anymore and I swiftly hung up on him. I relaxed that evening and even spent a bit of time talking to the French lads. It turned out that one of them, John, wasn't a smoker and that we had a lot in common so I managed to get reasonably intellectual and engaging conversation flowing with him for the rest of my last evening. The morning of my departure dragged longer than I thought possible, though it was wonderful to know I had such a lovely plan set up for the festive period!