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!!