Grand Prix

Finally the GP is over and four days of challenging cigarette butt cleaning finished!
First day when I arrived at the GP I was wearing black runners and black leggings. I thought this would be enough for a cleaner? Apparently I was not good looking enough to allow me to work in the pits, so I had to ditch that opportunity for the day and was sent to the corporate area to hoover the floor. I think it was the longest hoovering I have ever done - three hours in a row. Not too bad since I could see some demonstrations on the track. The supervisor was ok too. Told me to look busy and not to work too fast. There were about 5 Asian looking girls hoovering the same area and the supervisor asked me to redo everything since they were not able to to their jobs properly. Don't know what they were doing there. Anyway, first day was not too busy. There were not a lot of people and I got off the hook at 6pm already. The next day I turned up in fancy black office pants and flat shoes. I was allowed to go and brush the pavement in the pits area. I had to pick up every single leaf and anything else that was not the actual grass. The area itself was pretty small, so I probably walked back and forth for around 200 times within 11 hours! The only good thing about it was the fact that I probably saw a lot of famous people from the F1 world. The bad thing is I didn't know who was who. And I probably figured in every single TV channel that broadcast the F1 "behind the scenes". I recognised Hamilton, Alonso, Häkkinen, Räikkönen, Massa, Coulthard and some old guy who is always wearing a red cap and in the past always commenting on F1 races on German TV. The place was full of TV channels. By the end of day four it had become rather difficult to avoid the cameras while walking up and down with a brush. On actual race day we all decided to go and watch the start of the race, after all we did have the access to get right above the starting positions. My supervisor was not nice at all and did not allow any of us to go there and made us work. There was no work to do at that stage! We just legged it. I could only stay there for 2 mins when the boss caught me and sent me back to work. What a disaster, I missed the start!! At least I could get a close look at the warm up.
The cleaning itself (not mentioning the name of the company) seems to be run by rather "intelligent" people.
We worked a few extra days after the F1 cleaning up the mess and I have to say the "big boss" on the site was a total idiot. He did not seem to have any people skills and the few normal people that worked there seemed to just go along with it.
Our work for the event is done for now and another day of work is due on Friday but hopefully we will not have to deal with the lunatics any more.

Melbourne

It has been a few days since my last update. Nothing exciting happened over the weekend. Now that I know I will stay in Melbourne for at least three months I can unpack my luggage and put all my clothes in the wardrobe. What a luxury! There is no need share the room with 7 people and and no need to share the bathroom either! We have rented a small apartment in a lovely house out in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It is a bit of a hike to get into the centre but public transport is very efficient and it takes around 45 minutes to an hour to get into town. Not too bad considering it is 30 km away from the centre. The suburb is called Wheelers Hill and my god you should see the houses over there! I thought the one we were living in was quite nice but once you walk around in the neighbourhood you realise yours isn't the fancy one!! I would really like you to come and see those houses Marju. You would probably pee in your pants. haha
This weekend was a bank holiday weekend so there was lots to do in town. Moomba Festival was on from Friday to Monday offering plenty to see over the four days and it was all for free. I got to see water ski jumps for the first time in my life, never even knew this sport existed!
www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/moomba 
 I cannot resist to complain about Dublin new years eve concert in College Green where you'd have to pay to see it. Also, public transport is capped 3.50 AUD per day at weekends and public holidays. That means you only pay 3.50 and travel as much as you want. What an incentive :)
I am really starting to like this city. I must say I prefer Melbourne to Sydney. We managed to get jobs at the F1 Grand Prix as cleaners but hey who cares that I have to clean. I may get to clean after Alonso or some other drivers... I doubt that but I can still dream about it. I specifically dressed up and wore make up to the registration so that maybe they could pick me to work in a nicer area than the toilet. Will let you know once I find out on Thursday. Will upload pics tomorrow.

On the way to Melbourne

St Kilda Beach

Moomba Festival

Ski jumps Moomba Festival

New home

Melbourne skyline

Burr

Hi there!
Didn't get a chance to upload pictures yet but here are a few from the farm we stayed at. I managed to do one day of work and then we decided it was not worth it. The job itself was cutting burr - more like digging it out of the ground with a shovel. 7 hours is like a day in the gym in 35 degrees. The last couple of hours were a complete torture. I did not know whether to take off my long sleeve shirt or keep it on as there was no cool air, no wind, no shade, no water left in my bottle. Besides all that I had to keep my eyes open for brown snakes. Did not see or step on any of them luckily. The farmer said it is better to wear long trousers in case I'd get bitten. Great. Thanks for the advice!
Checked at the CVGT office this morning for some fruit picking jobs for the day. Went to one farm to check prices. The job was picking apricots -33 AUD per bin. Obviously we did not stay as the average bin should be paid at 40 AUD. All I could see were Asians that were picking the fruit. They can do any job for any price and 10 times faster. I am not that desperate with money that I do a day of slavery for a few dollars. Work wise there may be some better opportunities in Melbourne. I do not want to say anything right now as I would not want to jinx it. Will write about it when everything is confirmed!
Click on READ MORE below pictures!

Coonara

Tocumwal

Our drive down to Tocumwal (pop 1,930) was easier than expected. It took around 9 hours with a couple of stops. From Newcastle for a good 300km the nature looked like Ireland. Even the weather was like in Ireland- pissing rain! The views of the nature itself were beautiful and lush. After a while the grass started looking less green and with less and less plantation. At some stage I felt like I was in Estonia. The landscape looked so similar. After probably around 600km I spotted my first ever kangaroos. There were four of them jumping along with the highway. They were so cute. No pictures taken of them yet but I know a secret place where they come to feed.

Oh, by the way, if you are travelling in Australia (in the middle of nowhere), make sure you fill up the tank as the petrol stations close at 8pm and there is a chance that there will not be another one close enough! We were running low on the petrol and stopped to get some in a small town and to our surprise the station had just closed minutes ago. The girls at the local pub told us there was a bigger one just half an hour drive away. We were lucky this time. The bigger ones are generally for the trucks passing by that need to stop and get some fuel and also rest. Some stations do not have diesel so it is better to buy a car that runs on petrol.

We arrived at a farm called Coonara – it is around 10km from Tocumwal town. It really is in the middle of nowhere. It took us a while to find it but eventually we got there. The owner of the farm and his assistant were there to greet us and give us a small tour of the house. It is a farm house that has been turned into (or is being turned into) a hostel. They only started the business three days ago and are still in the process of organising things. The idea is that we stay at the house, pay for the accommodation (25 AUD per night) and they find us a job. If we wish to find our own accommodation we cannot work for the employer any more. We can find our own job though and still stay there. There are around ten backpackers here now of which half are already employed. I am the only girl (besides the assistant). We may be lucky enough to start work next week already. I can work around the house here for free if I want and they will write this down towards my 2^nd year visa but this is voluntary as I do not get paid for it. Not sure if I want to do that for now. Tucomwal area generally deals with dairy, hay, rice and similar products. If you are looking to pick fruit, this is not the place to start from. Because we are very close to the border of Victoria state we went across to a town called Cobram (18km from where we are) and registered ourselves with CVGT (www.cvgt.com.au). They provide fruit picking work for anyone who is registered with them. The farmers would contact the office if they need fruit pickers. The people who are listed on the day will be contacted by the office with an address of the farm to go to. The length of the work depends on the farmer. It may be from one day to several weeks or months. However, to be continuously available we would have to go and put ourselves on the list every day at 8.30am in the morning and then wait and see if there’s any work for us that day. I don’t know any other details about it for the moment.

We went to a local pub / restaurant today to talk to the manager in case he needed anyone to help out there. I left my contact details and he said he’d be in contact if he needed to hire more staff. Our farmer Ted had spoken to him in advance and asked me to go over and have a chat with him.

If I get a job there for a short period of time I am happy enough. In the long run I prefer to do farm related work. Since I am out here anyway, I might as well work towards my 2^nd year visa. You never know, I might need it one day.

We spent our first day exploring the surroundings here. Went to Tocumwal town for breakfast and spent some time in the library – free internet. Drove further to Cobram town to do some shopping and food shopping. I got myself a cool pair of purple rain boots. I will look so stylish somewhere in the bush!

Also, we were told today that there is a brown snake living somewhere underneath the shed. Also, there are redback spiders living in the toilet that is outside the house. Must check it out tomorrow before they kill them! They are planning to turn the shed into extra accommodation so I am sure we will meet our friend brown snake too. Can’t wait, haha. There are supposed to be death adders and tiger snakes around in the rice fields as well but I won’t be going anywhere near that luckily...

The Hostel

The house itself is not too bad. There are cooking facilities, fridge, living room area with tv and air con. There is no internet at the moment but it doesn’t bother me. Life does not have to evolve around internet anyway. I like the remoteness of the place.

Apparently Tucomwal suffers from continuous water shortage and we are only allowed to take 5 minute showers. If anyone starts to waste the hot water, the next person may have to take a cold shower.

The water is made up of normal water and rain water and it does not smell good at all. We were told it was safe to drink but just a little bit salty. I think I will buy bottled water.

The house has 5 rooms fitting probably 20 people in total and one toilet and one bathroom. I guess there will be no problem since everyone is only allowed to shower for 5 mins!

There seem to be some stupid rules also – ie no shoes indoors. The floors are not that clean and I intend to wear flip flops still. I can keep them for indoor shoes but I will not walk bare feet like tarzan either J

Pictures of our new amazing house to follow later!!