Outback Experience

Blog-a-log. What time is it? Blog time! Time for me to write one and time for you to read one. How long has it been? We’ve been away for almost a month… and that’s simply not acceptable. I’m in the outback now so I’ll have time to write, but there’ll probably be nothing to write about. This blog may well encompass everything that we already have and probably will experience. Then again we might get surprised, but based on what we’ve seen thus far, well let’s just say I’m not holding my breath.

Ok – first – the backstory. I can’t remember exactly where we left off last time and since I’m writing this at the house (and don’t have internet here) I can’t check. I’ll just start from when we got back to Sydney and got our relocation campervan. Lindberg was/is up in Cairns. Taylor was/is back in SanFran/Stanford area. Erin and I were heading up from Sydney to Brisbane in a big ole campervan at $5 a day for 3 days. We stopped at various beaches along the way. I body-surfed and got pounded into the sand while Erin struggled (fruitlessly) against the rip currents. We sunbathed and read novels and frolicked in the sand and watched surfers with the high-rises of Brisbane in the distant background. It was neat. Anyway – then we got to Brisbane and realized we had no plans beyond that. So we went to a hostel and figured out we had no money left. Well not no money, but not as much as we would have liked. And I actually had no money because I had to give the campervan people $1000 bond. They refunded it to me, but for some reason it didn’t go through the bank for-ehhh-ver. I had $6 in my bank account for ages. And at the same time my debit card (from the US) expired so I couldn’t even use that. And one night Erin lost her wallet at this internet place and couldn’t get it because it was already closed. And of course all her debit/credit cards and whatnot were in the wallet. And so we lived for a night on the $6 in my bank account and $7 in change that we had in our pockets. It was great – truly a rewarding experience or something like that.

So we decided we needed jobs. So we went a job-searching. Many, if not all, of you know how horrible it is to look for jobs. It is especially bad when you want to get a job without lying to your future employer and you have to tell them you only want to work for 1-2 months and they’re looking for somebody to work a minimum 1-2 years (I tried to apply at the Belgium Beer Café… similar to the Bavarian Bier Café, but not as good). We did get a breakthrough when I asked some girl at the hostel we were staying at about jobs because a job was opening up at the hostel. Erin and I talked to the manager and he said he had to figure some stuff out, but he’d get back to us. In the meantime we went all over the place searching for jobs and got a couple leads. We also came up with the idea that we wanted to experience the outback and that maybe we’d do a farmstay or homestay or whatever you wanna call it. We found loads of places where we could do that, but you don’t get paid for your work. Instead you work 3-5 hours a day for food and accommodation with a family… usually on a farm somewhere sweet. Then we had a breakthrough. Patrick at ‘Travelers at Work’ hooked us up with jobs in Bedourie, Queensland (where we are now) working at the Simpson Desert Oasis Roadhouse. They paid to fly us out here and we’re working in the bar or the motel or the shop or wherever.

So that’s the backstory… and that’s really the whole story. The town has between 90 and 150 people in it at any given time. It has a roadhouse, where we work, with a bar/restaurant and a grocery store and motel/cabin rooms. It has a pub where everybody in the town apparently goes to get drunk almost every night. It has an information center where the lady that works there when asked ‘well what do you do here?’ replies… “well, I mostly work as much as possible. I lead a really low and slow life.” And she was about 27. It has a community center, which Erin and I used today, which is basically a basketball court with holes for tennis poles and nets. It has a pool and artesian spa, which is fantastically out of place but almost unenjoyable due to the ridiculous amount of flies everywhere. We’ve been told a couple cold nights will more or less kill them all so we’re waiting for that. Also you can just hold your breath under the water for as long as possible. No, it’s not that bad… but it is bad. I’m really getting used to the flies. I look like those African kids you see with the flies on their faces because I can’t bother to keep them away anymore. What else does the town have? Hmmmmmm…. Overpriced everything! Groceries cost approximately 2-5 times what you’d normally pay elsewhere in Australia simply because the roadhouse is the only place that sells them and they can charge whatever they want because the nearest store is 200 kilometers or more away.

Erin and I have decided to take this outback experience as an opportunity to really see something new and ridiculous that we’ll never see again and to make some cash. We’re working as much as possible and making a decent wage (and paying next to nothing for accommodation) so we should come out of this with a good chunk of cash. We also decided that since we can’t do anything else, we’re going to get our minds in peak mental condition by reading as many books as possible and our bodies in peak physical condition by working out 4-6 times a week. My legs and shoulders are really sore right now so the latter goal is going well so far. My brain feels fine so the former goal is getting there I guess.

I dunno – I think that’s all. There are actually some funny stories I’ll be able to tell, but I’m tired of writing right now so that’s it and that’s all. I’m sure you’ll be able to deal with it. I’ll try to get some pics asap so you can see what we’re dealing with here. Oh, the Bedourie airport is a shack with a strip of asphalt about as long as you can run while holding one breath surrounded by a fence. I can’t even imagine the windshield of the planes landing in Bedourie… they must be covered in flies. Maybe those bluey glowing electric bug zappers don’t exist here. I think I’ll import them and pile up all the flies I kill and sell them to frog breeders or something. There’s gotta be a market there somewhere.

Ok I’m done-zo. Keep it real.

- Jesse “what are we doing here? Short answer – not much” Meredith