(9) Do Your Time At The Cellblock!

Bundaberg which has begun and ended was the most intense experience I have had as of yet in Australia.



Allow me to begin.



The 21 hour bus ride passed pretty easily. We met a couple new friends, one being a guy who just got out of jail for armed robbery (who seemed really nice but we dropped him off halfway to Bundaberg) but the other two were Emma from England and Lindsey from Ireland who were in the same position as us and needed to find work. The two bus drivers, apparently needing to compensate for lack of power or control in their life, demanded the bus passengers act in accordance with military school guidelines. No legs in the aisle, no smoking or drinking, beware if I find you with so much as a toe in the aisle and we will kick you off this bus before you can say "I'm an asshole".



Nevermind that. We arrived in the fair city of Bundaberg (fair being the overstatement of the century) with the intention of staying in a working hostel. A working hostel provides backpackers with a room, bathroom, kitchen and a farm to work on. Well, we arrived at City Hostel only to find the office was closed for the next few hours and the four of us (The two girls joined us) were sitting outside in the sunshine trying to shake off the remnants of sleep, dirt and starvation.



Eugene showed up shortly after, a pot-bellied and angry looking man and demanded to know why we were occupying space on his property.



"We were told to come here for work, sir." I replied as politely as possible. He checks his watch impatiently and told us we will have to wait because he is a busy man and he will come back and check us in after he picks up some backpackers from a nearby farm.



"No problem," I oozed with a huge sarcastic smile. I had turned into the spokeswoman for the group. As soon as he runs into the office with his large behind wagging behind him, we all turn to each other with horrified looks on our faces - it was pretty comical.

We whisper amongst ourselves and decide to check out our other options while Eugene is away picking up backpackers. He comes back and barks that he can service us now but it has to be quick.

"You know Eugene, we're going to wait for a fourth friend so you can go..." I say sweetly. Eugene looks at us suspiciously and warns us not to be fishing around for a better place. Then he finally leaves and we pack our bags to go to the next hostel which is supposed to encourage drinking and have better management.

We strap on our two ton backpacks and walk the 4 blocks to the Cellblock.

Let me just paint the picture for you...

There is a pool on the side with shrieks of laughter eminating from the bar area and topless boys walking around with jugs of beer at 11 in the morning.

We checked in as quickly as possible and inquired about work (they had work for us) and then got straight down to the important business of donning our bathing suits.

I started this article last week and now I'm too lazy to finish in detail but the extent of the rest of my stay in Bundaberg and the Cellblock was tres interesting. I met a lot of cool travelers from germany, England, Ireland, Holland and Canadia. No Americans.

I worked in a packing warehouse on a tomato farm sorting and packing tomatoes - not very exciting. The next day I was assigned to work on a sugar cane farm and it was the most back breaking work I have ever done. We spent eight hours a day cleaning the sugar cane sticks from the fields so the farmer could replant. The sun was baking down on us, the dry dust was sticking to my clothes, boots, skin - there was seriously dust in almost every opening in my body.

I worked with two other girls, one French and one German both of whom were super nice and sweet and we got to know each other a bit but my favorite was Carlos.

Carlos is an import from Africa. He is part Portuguese which explains his whiteness but he left Angola, Africa when he was 16 during a civil war. his family fled to South Africa and had to live in the desert for days with no food or water. He's traveled to Asia and then to Australia where he's been living for 21 years. He was our supervisor on the farm and regaled us with numerous stories of his childhood and stories of an Indian doctor who grew cocaine in an underground lab and killed his father with a botched operation.

Carlos kept the work interesting and fun so the fact that my hamstrings and back were sobbing with pain by the time 3:30 rolled around wasn't so much of a bother. And for the two days I did this work, let me just tell you how good you feel when you're done. It's meditative work, honest work and good for the soul.

Anyway, we were getting calls from Melbourne during this time from the Sharehouse, telling us about a crazy party and then a week long camping trip, almost entirely paid for if we flew our little rear ends back to Victoria (That's the state). Dovi and I were planning to try out Sydney because we decided the environnment at the hostel was too much drinking and partying and we wanted to find jobs that weren't back breaking and paid more.

I had managed to continue running, I found a small park on the river across the street from the hostel and was doing about 5K a day but no yoga. There was no quiet place for me to practice yoga and after a week at the Cellblock (it's called that because it used to be a jail before being transformed into a backpackers farming brokerage. Seriously the managers brokered backpackers out to farmers like they were refinancing mortgages.) we decided to make the trip to the internet cafe to book a ticket to Sydney after work.

As it happens we received yet another phone call from the sly Sam and Company who persuaded my traveling partner Dovi to change course.

So after thanking the quirky Aussie nerd manning the internet hub, we were granted a connection and tickets to Melbourne were booked (do not ask how I am paying for things, small amounts of money are just coming from G-d somehow) and a train ride and flight ensued.

A nice day stop in Brisbane and a lucky find of 7-11 slurpees there, Dovi and I found ourselves in transition to a new experience....Melbourne, we're coming back!