(8) Initiated into Backpackerhood

Apparently there has been a "cold front" for all the crops in Queensland. The farms that we are supposed to be working at are all delayed by 2 -3 weeks and that means work is delayed and that means money is delayed.
No matter. Dovi and I harassed the Harvest Trails hot line every hour or so until we got a farm who had space for us! We are pretty much done with Cairns so as soon as the farm confirmed with us we rushed to book a bus ticket. The previous evening had not been so successfull. We met up with a group of 5 English guys who had fork burns on their stomachs from "Who is the most manly" type of games. It was a little depressing to sit their and watch them time their friend stick his hand in a bowl of ice for 5 minutes so we left and went to bed early. It's a good thing too because it is sunny and beautiful and there were so many more interesting people to meet! Two French guys throwing a football around, a cute Asian girl and even poor Margaret who is a 70 year old (I am not kidding) backpacker. She's been backpacking for 22 years....

Last night Dovi convinced me that we should have a BBQ (they have them available right on the Lagoon) and he ended up having a lot of extra meat. We noticed a group of backpackers sitting at a nearby table drinking Goon (cheap boxed wine) out of McDonalds cups so we invited them to finish off the lot.

Little did we know that this diverse mix were loud, fun and genuinely uncaring of consequence were going to initiate us into the official hood of Backpackerism. They taught us about Goon, rollies and how to meet the cool people. We all ended up meeting a bunch of guys also throwing a BBQ who offered to move the party to their house nearby which we did (don't worry it was like 7 against 3).

The girls were wasted and cracking funnier and dirtier jokes (I chose not to drink the nasty looking Goon). We arrived at their house and I indulged in a beer. The guys whose house it was started twirling fire batons and started a bonfire in the yard. Aimee, the loudest and funniest of the English girls was making self deprecating jokes about her black bank statements and Annie, the hippie from Washington State was creating rollies every couple minutes. Rollies, btw are hand rolled cigarettes - a backpacker special....

Cont....

After saying good bye to our new found friends it was time to say good bye and move on to a place where we could find work. So we booked a 21 hour bus ride to Bundaberg, packed a huge load of food and began making our way to Backpackerhood.