this is a long one...might want to take some reading breaks...

Happy late Thanksgiving to everyone in the US! I hope you ate some turkey and stuffing for me because turkey was not happening here. I was dripping sweat, sitting in the shade in shorts and a t-shirt, contemplating ice cream, which is the exact opposite of what I usually do on Thanksgiving when it's cold and all I want is delicious warm food.

The last week has been quite a bit of fun. We fell into another job around the area when Tony, a garlic farmer called the hostel and asked if there were any backpackers looking for work. Thus started my illustrious career as champion garlic digger, root snipper, bundler, and hanger. Now garlic picking isn't all that hard, but you're out in the sun all day, hunched over, digging garlic bulbs out of the ground, contending with mud, prickly bushes, and scuttling spiders. So you get really dirty and your back starts complaining after a couple hours.

Once again, Australian hospitality made itself known. I could get used to it. Our boss was always providing drinks, coffee, or tea, ice cream, fruit, and one night he even gave us his car to he wouldn't have to pick us up in the morning. If you ask me, that takes a lot of trust. I'm sure when he was watching us drive away, Stefan, our German friend, at the wheel, he was wondering what condition his car would be in when he got it back. But we each took a turn driving, you know, getting used to the whole “stay on the left side of the road” thing and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. It's basically the opposite of back home with the left hand turns being the easy ones and the right hand turns where you have to watch for all the traffic. But it was nice to have the freedom that a car brings, even if it was for a night since we've been walking or biking into town, which is a time intensive endeavor.

Garlic picking was great. I met a whole bunch of people. A French girl, one from New Zealand, and a large group of people from Thailand and Laos who came in and saved the day a few days ago, making the picking go so much faster. Since picking isn't the most entertaining job in the world, we talked a lot and I got to learn all the important Thai phrases like hello, good, no good, and take it easy. I'd be out in the field picking and they would be jabbering away in Thai, with me in my own little world, and all of a sudden one of them would tack my name onto the end of a Thai sentence, essentially asking me a question to which I would stare blankly back at them and eloquently grunt out, “What?” to which they would laugh and then translate for me. I'm sure they enjoyed it, but they were also delighted that Steve and I would keep asking different phrases to learn their language.

The last few days in Hunter Valley were a blast since we took a break from work and just hung out. The 25th we trekked over to Potter's Brewery, just down the road from the YHA for a $10 brewery tour. I wasn't expecting that much and we were told that the tour lasted about 20 minutes, but an hour and fifteen minutes later, the guy was still talking. It was really interesting to hear about how different malts combined with different hops can produce an abundance of different flavors in a beer and how yeast turns to alcohol after a while. The whole process is very scientific and a lot of thought goes into deciding exactly what type of taste the brewer is attempting to obtain. After the tour, we walked next door to the pub and tried out a few of the beers Keith, the beer guy (his official title, I swear) had mentioned. There was a delicious mango beer and a disgusting bacon flavored beer which I got just to try and regretted the entire time I tried to drink it. Then we went back to the hostel to find it invaded by a huge group of people up from sydney. I don't think i've seen that many people at the hostel the entire time we were there.

Friday the 26th, our last day in Hunter we cleaned for Carolyn and then we (Chris, me, Steve, and Glen, a Kiwi) hopped on some bikes, up and down hills for a good 40 minutes to get to Hunter Valley Gardens where we played AquaGolf. Now aquagolf is an amazing invention. It is essentially a driving range into a large pond, but scattered in the lake are various nets labelled with different prizes ranging from $20 at the local pub, to a bottle of wine from a nearby winery, to the $10,000 grand prize. The guys were pretty good, and Glen won a voucher for a meal at the Australian Hotel in Cessnock. No one else won anything, but we bought another bucket of balls because we were convinced eventually we'd hit something. It's better than gambling, because you get to hit a freaking golf ball as hard as you can just for the fun of it. Then we went back to the hostel, piled into the truck and Carolyn took us into town for our bus ride to Newcastle. All of our friends saw us off. We had our own Hunter Valley send off committee with Chris, Stefan, Carolyn, Glen, and Terry. It was really cool that in the 2 weeks time we spent in Hunter, we made some good friends, and I'm sure that in the course of travels we'll see them again.

After waiting 4 hours in Newcastle, our bus finally arrived and we loaded all our stuff onto it for the 11 hour ride north. Luckily it was an overnight bus and I, for once, actually got some sleep. Anyway, we arrived Saturday morning in Lennox Head, dropped our bags in our room and headed down to the surf club for some breakfast at a stand on the beachside. Let me tell you, banana pancakes with ice cream is a beautiful way to start the day. We explored the town, looked into the real estate offices because we're thinking about an apartment, and discovered most everything is for holiday rent these days which is about $1000 a week. I hung out at the beach for a bit and walked to the ti-tree lake, where the tea trees turn the water brown like the drink. We met Byron, a med student from Perth who is doing a 2 week rotation at the Byron Bay hospital. He offered us a place to stay in Perth at the apartment he shares with a bunch of mates, so we have an option if jobs in Lennox Head don't pan out. We also met another Stefan, this one is from Switzerland, and he's been motorbiking down the east coast for the last 3 months.

Anyway, the four of us went into town last night to see what was happening in tiny Lennox and we found the bowling and sport club where drinks are about half price and the food is cheap and delicious. There was also live music. I will definitely be revisiting the bowling club in the future. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday was a lot of fun. It began as all days should, by getting in my bathing suit and slathering on sunscreen for some time to sit at the beach. Ruth, an intrepid traveler from the UK, and Byron got up early to go diving and when they came back, they made a delicious brunch that they shared with us. Then we headed out on the lake in kayaks we had to lug over there. I had quite the time of it in the lake as Steve and Byron were rocketing across the water, my kayak would unexpectedly spin in circles for no reason I could see. So it took me quite a bit longer to actually get anywhere than it did them.

Then we decided to get some food for a BBQ dinner that night, and this is how I go out grocery shopping and end up hang gliding. While we were out shopping for food, Byron got a call from the hang gliding guy saying that the weather was perfect for it and he needed to go up. Anyway, I decided to go watch and when we got picked up, the lady asked me if I was going up as well, and I thought, why not? So 10 minutes later, I found myself strapped in a high tech sleeping bag, fastened to a glider, standing on the edge of a huge cliff just outside Lennox Head. I didn't even have time to wonder what the heck I was doing there before Neil, the instructor, stepped off the cliff, with me right behind him. Hang-gliding is one of the best things I've ever done, right up there with parasailing. It is so peaceful to just float up there on the wind and watch what's going on down below. When I get back to the States and round up a bit of money, that's what i'm signing up for, hang-gliding lessons. It'd be great to do for fun.

After that we had our BBQ, made by a genuine Aussie on the barbie. It was pretty good. Steve and I spent the rest of the evening working on our resumes and teaching Byron how to play Shithead, a great card game (I didn't name it, that's just what it's called).

Oh, we also got credit on our phones for the first time in weeks all thanks to Byron, who let us use his credit card to buy credit online. He's a great guy :) Can't believe he trusts us that much after just a day!


Today was the day to get things done, or to at least attempt to get them done. We got up, had breakfast, and then hopped on the bus to go to Ballina for some groceries since the only supermarket in Lennox is the IGA which is tiny. Our trip turned into an expedition since the buses only run every 1 ½ hours so we hung around Ballina a bit and when we got back we dressed up in our very best, to go knocking on doors in town, begging someone to hire us.

I now understand why everyone gets so frustrated looking for jobs. This is my first experience with job searching and it is so disheartening to walk away from an establishment, knowing deep inside that the resume you just gave them is ultimately going to end up filed away somewhere they'll never look again, or in the trash. I stopped by at least 7 places today, and I think maybe one or two of the places might give me a call back sometime. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Tomorrow, I'm planning to head out again to a couple places that were closed today just to see what might happen.