It was four days of boozy, muddy, country fun. I felt a little bit out of place with my straw bowler and leather jacket while everyone had Driza-Bones and Akubras, but to my surprise everyone was really accommodating (apart from one loud-mouthed, drunken, ex-race car driving women who decided to slur out ramblings which I'm sure were insults). I think it might have been my city-boy naivety but I went in there thinking that I would be dodging Bundy-soaked punches every five minutes, but that really wasn't the case. I ended up meeting some great people and apart from the days of ankle deep mud, had a lot of fun.
This first section was written Saturday afternoon, before the happenings of the rest of this blog took place.
When we landed back in Brisbane we started looking for work... after a couple of weeks of sitting on arse of course. We posted an add on online saying the we were two travelers looking for work and had a few calls from farms within the next two days with offers. After some thought we decided on a fruit picking job in Caboolture, 40 minutes out of the city. We would leave on the Sunday to get settled in, then start work on Monday the 19th of September picking strawberries.
When I talked to the working hostel's management (an odd sounding man who wanted to be called Doc) he advised that Jess and I would have a room with a double bed, a TV, wifi and a heap of other things included. It was a little expensive for accommodation but according to the quoted pay for the work it should have been a breeze to live comfortably, and save money for our trip too.
What we found when we arrived on the Sunday was nothing like what we were told. We had alarm bells ringing as soon as we met Doc at his HQ (something about the cigarette wreaking pigsty that he was calling an office, the plaque on the wall claiming that he had a Doctorate of Divinity, or his stereotypical con-man appearance [a cross between Danny De Vito in the movie Matilda and Oscar the Grouch] probably did it) but we were tired and stupidly paid for the room up front for the next two weeks before going to check it out.
We then followed him across town to where we would be staying and ended up at what I can easily sum up as a crack-den. This tiny unit block had boarded up windows, graffitied walls inside and out, broken bits of furniture, broken glass and other miscellaneous crap scattered around everywhere. Two of the people that we met straight away looked like pretty serious users and another shirtless charmer looked at me like he was wondering how much he could get for my teeth. When Doc opened up our unit, which was already being occupied by two French people, he couldn't show us our room straight away because the light wasn't working. We had to follow the man back across town to get some globes.
The next trip from the office Doc didn't come with us, he left us to find our own way back. By the time we found the place again we were feeling some pretty mutual bad Ju Ju but were still thinking that it maybe wasn't all that bad. When we pulled up ready to unpack a younger guy named Tommy came over and introduced himself. When we said that we were going to be fruit picking he said that it's not something that he would ever do because he couldn't pick fast enough to make money from the commission based work- something that Doc neglected to tell us. In fact he specifically said that it was going to be an hourly wage. This info really pissed me off as I really didn't want to be doing commission work on this trip, but we're tough and weren't ready to throw in the towel yet.
We walked into our unit, I put in the new globe, turned on the light and looked around at the shit-hole in front of us. The room hadn't been cleaned from the last occupant and was filthy, to the point where I was worried about taking off my thongs- scattered litter, old sheets etc. etc. And what a surprise, there was no TV, no wifi and the double bed was actually a half dismantled bunk bed. Jess just looked at me and said "I don't like to think I've been spoiled in my life, but this is fucked." We must have been in shock because we unloaded our things into the room, but after less than five minutes of rational thought we said there is no way that we can do this and put all of our things back into Blue.
We raced back across town so that I could confront Doc and get our money back but when we arrived he wasn't around. I knocked on the second story where two guys were watching TV and asked if they knew where he was but they had no idea. One of them was nice enough to invite Jess and I inside for a beer so that we could wait in comfort, which we accepted. While sitting and watching a report on an Australian crazy man claiming he was Jesus, I told the two lodgers what was going on. They told us that this man Doc makes a living screwing people over. The word is that this place and the local thugs are in cahoots, and when the workers are all out people will come in and steal all of their valuables, and that people have tried to get their money back before but have failed. We waited for twenty minutes but still no Doc so we decided to leave back for Brisbane and call for a refund the next day. As we were driving away we saw his car returning home, so we did a u-turn and I confronted the bastard. All he would say, as I started telling him how he misrepresented our working and living arrangement was "Cancellation fee, one weeks notice and no refunds" over and over again as he walked from his car back into his office with his friend. As he sat there saying this phrase while lighting up a cigarette, eating what looked like two day old pasta and never once looking at me I wondered for the first time in my life how easy it would be to pull a man's ears off. I'm sure that his large maori friend in that back of the room would have made this difficult but it was still worth a thought.
I told him that we were obviously not going to get a resolution there and then so we would be in touch, then left with a new found skepticism of the human race. After talking to some lawyers and the Department of Fair Trade I found out that most of what this man did was illegal but we'll see whether we will get our money back or not. I did learn some valuable lessons though: one, never trust a person claiming that they have a Doctorate of Divinity or something equally as ridiculous, and never, ever go to Caboolture; even if you win the lottery and have to go there to pick up your prize- you're better off just forgetting about it.
We're now back where we started, looking for work in or around Brisbane although this time our accounts are a bit lighter so we're needing the money a bit more. I'll make sure my next post isn't as delayed as this one, but I'll leave you with the actual email sign-off from Doc just in case you find it as entertaining as I did. Love!
This first section was written Saturday afternoon, before the happenings of the rest of this blog took place.
When we landed back in Brisbane we started looking for work... after a couple of weeks of sitting on arse of course. We posted an add on online saying the we were two travelers looking for work and had a few calls from farms within the next two days with offers. After some thought we decided on a fruit picking job in Caboolture, 40 minutes out of the city. We would leave on the Sunday to get settled in, then start work on Monday the 19th of September picking strawberries.
When I talked to the working hostel's management (an odd sounding man who wanted to be called Doc) he advised that Jess and I would have a room with a double bed, a TV, wifi and a heap of other things included. It was a little expensive for accommodation but according to the quoted pay for the work it should have been a breeze to live comfortably, and save money for our trip too.
What we found when we arrived on the Sunday was nothing like what we were told. We had alarm bells ringing as soon as we met Doc at his HQ (something about the cigarette wreaking pigsty that he was calling an office, the plaque on the wall claiming that he had a Doctorate of Divinity, or his stereotypical con-man appearance [a cross between Danny De Vito in the movie Matilda and Oscar the Grouch] probably did it) but we were tired and stupidly paid for the room up front for the next two weeks before going to check it out.
We then followed him across town to where we would be staying and ended up at what I can easily sum up as a crack-den. This tiny unit block had boarded up windows, graffitied walls inside and out, broken bits of furniture, broken glass and other miscellaneous crap scattered around everywhere. Two of the people that we met straight away looked like pretty serious users and another shirtless charmer looked at me like he was wondering how much he could get for my teeth. When Doc opened up our unit, which was already being occupied by two French people, he couldn't show us our room straight away because the light wasn't working. We had to follow the man back across town to get some globes.
The next trip from the office Doc didn't come with us, he left us to find our own way back. By the time we found the place again we were feeling some pretty mutual bad Ju Ju but were still thinking that it maybe wasn't all that bad. When we pulled up ready to unpack a younger guy named Tommy came over and introduced himself. When we said that we were going to be fruit picking he said that it's not something that he would ever do because he couldn't pick fast enough to make money from the commission based work- something that Doc neglected to tell us. In fact he specifically said that it was going to be an hourly wage. This info really pissed me off as I really didn't want to be doing commission work on this trip, but we're tough and weren't ready to throw in the towel yet.
We walked into our unit, I put in the new globe, turned on the light and looked around at the shit-hole in front of us. The room hadn't been cleaned from the last occupant and was filthy, to the point where I was worried about taking off my thongs- scattered litter, old sheets etc. etc. And what a surprise, there was no TV, no wifi and the double bed was actually a half dismantled bunk bed. Jess just looked at me and said "I don't like to think I've been spoiled in my life, but this is fucked." We must have been in shock because we unloaded our things into the room, but after less than five minutes of rational thought we said there is no way that we can do this and put all of our things back into Blue.
We raced back across town so that I could confront Doc and get our money back but when we arrived he wasn't around. I knocked on the second story where two guys were watching TV and asked if they knew where he was but they had no idea. One of them was nice enough to invite Jess and I inside for a beer so that we could wait in comfort, which we accepted. While sitting and watching a report on an Australian crazy man claiming he was Jesus, I told the two lodgers what was going on. They told us that this man Doc makes a living screwing people over. The word is that this place and the local thugs are in cahoots, and when the workers are all out people will come in and steal all of their valuables, and that people have tried to get their money back before but have failed. We waited for twenty minutes but still no Doc so we decided to leave back for Brisbane and call for a refund the next day. As we were driving away we saw his car returning home, so we did a u-turn and I confronted the bastard. All he would say, as I started telling him how he misrepresented our working and living arrangement was "Cancellation fee, one weeks notice and no refunds" over and over again as he walked from his car back into his office with his friend. As he sat there saying this phrase while lighting up a cigarette, eating what looked like two day old pasta and never once looking at me I wondered for the first time in my life how easy it would be to pull a man's ears off. I'm sure that his large maori friend in that back of the room would have made this difficult but it was still worth a thought.
I told him that we were obviously not going to get a resolution there and then so we would be in touch, then left with a new found skepticism of the human race. After talking to some lawyers and the Department of Fair Trade I found out that most of what this man did was illegal but we'll see whether we will get our money back or not. I did learn some valuable lessons though: one, never trust a person claiming that they have a Doctorate of Divinity or something equally as ridiculous, and never, ever go to Caboolture; even if you win the lottery and have to go there to pick up your prize- you're better off just forgetting about it.
We're now back where we started, looking for work in or around Brisbane although this time our accounts are a bit lighter so we're needing the money a bit more. I'll make sure my next post isn't as delayed as this one, but I'll leave you with the actual email sign-off from Doc just in case you find it as entertaining as I did. Love!
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