ON THE VINE AGAIN - The Mildura Disaster
Three days ago Chris and Katy and I set off to Mildura (inland between Melbourne and Adelaide) with the promise of earning loads of money packing oranges. The bus and train journey there took 8 hours with a little stop for lunch in Swan Hill; a pie and 11 chips!!
We arrived feeling a bit nervous about it all but the woman who picked us up was so nice that we immediately thought it was all going to be great! She said the oranges would be along in a few days but in the meantime we could do other jobs which seemed cool. We arrived at the hostel and our rooms seemed ok, but a bit dirty. Donna set us up with a vine pulling job for the following day and then we headed into town, on the way passing three people threatening to call the Police and desperately trying to leave!! This unnerved us a bit and later on we saw the three of them walking through the town so we stopped and talked to them. The two girls had earned 8 pounds all day doing vine pulling and they weren’t happy so were off to catch the 4.30am bus!! Apparently some people have been waiting weeks to pack oranges!!
On Thursday we did our vine pulling. I managed 158 vines (chris managed 142 and Katy came in at 127). It was like having an 8 hour fight with a tree and I never want to have to do that again especially for so little money!! That evening we made the decision to leave and the next morning we walked to the bus station but me and Katy missed the once-a-day bus to Adelaide - aaaaaaaaaaahhhh; another day in Mildura!!
So after waving Chris off to Melbourne me and Katy went and checked into another hostel in Mildura (the only one who’d let us stay for one night without having to work)!! It was gross. The top bunk was 6 foot high, the mattresses wre thin bits of foam, the showers were in a portakabin, the only TV you could hear was outside in the backyard, the toilets were outside, I constantly had to wear my coat inside cos it was so cold, there were 8 people crammed into a tiny room, someone in the building was a fan of crazy dance music and this same person seemed to be the only person with CD player access, the doors had no locks, we had no cutley or plates so had to resort to Mc Donalds all the time, our roommate was crazy and kept talking to me instead of letting me sleep and every other housemate seemed to be on drugs all night cos they were up partying and crashing round the house till 7am when me and Katy were getting up to leave!!
But happily, me and Katy are now in Adelaide again and we can put that whole scary memory out of our minds as we job-search here instead and we can live in proper luxury compared with what we’ve “endured” recently!! On the drive into South Australia we saw a giant orange, a giant orange tree and a giant bagpiper to add to my list of giant things I’ve seen here!!