We were excited about the long awaited opening of the lagoon on the Esplanade in Cairns, but that too turned out to be a disappointment. It looked great, however it was more family-friendly and there were tons of kids splashing around at all times. And not to mention the weather... after being in/near Cairns for almost 2 weeks, not one single day was entirely sunny! The weather was mostly tropical with thick clouds blocking the sun for most of every day. Bummer.
And besides all of that, I did say that you had to have a lot of money to have fun in Cairns, and we are all pretty much out of that. We did spend some time making fake resumes - everyone suggested to add restaurant experience to our CV’s before trying to get work in Cairns - and Amy even handed out a handful of them at some restaurants.
The thing about backpackers and work that I have noticed is that everyone complains about having no money but no one does anything about it. Most of the travelers who do find work are lucky and stumble upon it without much effort on their part. That is exactly what happened to us.
Before I arrived at the hostel where Amy, Vic, and Mark were staying, they had met a guy there named James who drove the hostel shuttle. He told them about a farm in a small town called Bowen that he had just recently worked at picking fruit (watermelons and capsicum (or bell peppers!) to be exact). He thought that a large group of people from the farm would be leaving soon, so he encouraged us to call and see if they would take us. Amy called but no one answered, so we left a message and hoped for the best.
In the meantime, we went to a few of the backpacker travel agency in towns where they post jobs for travelers. We failed to realize though that most of these places charge you at least $50 before they even get you the job... At one of the agencies, there were 10 jobs available in Bundaberg on a lemon picking farm, so we had the girl enquire to see if we were potential candidates. She warned us that typically farmers are looking for a certain type of person, and we soon came to realize that by this she meant ethnicity. She called the farm in Bundaberg, and yes, there were still spots available. She asked us where we were from and relayed it to the farmer (Amy - England, Vic and Mark - Canada, me - America, and Stef - Germany). The farmer replied that he would take the Europeans only!
More than anything, we were confused. The girl had to explain to us that most farmers only take Asians or Europeans because they are believed to be harder workers. Apparently, the many North American backpackers who had come before us had proven to be crazy partiers and did not work hard enough by farmer standards. I could not believe that we could not even get fruit picking jobs if we wanted them!
Then to make matters worse, the farmer from Bowen returned Amy’s call and yes, it sounded promising. Except as soon as he heard there were Canadians and Americans, he told Amy he would call her back after he went through the waiting list that he had accumulated. We were not very hopeful... We spoke with James when we got back to our hostel and we found out that the farmer was Canadian himself! (native Canadian)
In the midst of all the job searching, I was able to meet up with Amanda who is one of Diana Schwahn’s roommates in New York. She is a 5th grade teacher and in grad school and dating a guy who lives in Australia, so she spends her summers traveling. It was great to spend the day with her and her brother in Cairns just sitting and chatting. We over-stayed our welcome at the restaurant we ate at for lunch and did not leave the table for nearly 3 hours haha! I was sad when they had to leave to go catch a flight, but Amanda and I vowed to meet up again along the way.
One other exciting thing that happened in Cairns - there was a wildlife show at our hostel one night, and we got to hold a baby crocodile! The guy who put on the show had some conflicting information from the research I had read about “salties” or estuarine crocodiles. He said they are unlikely to attack you unless you are right on top of them out of water. In the water however, they can swim much quicker than we can, and this is when they are extremely dangerous.
Back to the job search. The morning after I met Amanda and her brother, Amy received an early morning call from the farmer in Bowen! He said he was willing to give us a try and he could take all of us if we were willing to take a bus down to Bowen by Monday (it was Friday). Everyone had told us that we would never all find jobs together, but we had! Sounded too good to be true.
We went into town to look into booking the bus (we had to send him our confirmation numbers that day), however I had a decision to make. As I said before, I had not really done anything recently to find a job. When I had first arrived in Australia, I had met with an agency director in Melbourne who had told me he would keep me in mind when positions opened at his agency. I had received an email when we were still in New Zealand about an open position, and it turned out it was still available. The decision I had to make was to either take a guaranteed job (or at least I thought) fruit picking or chance that I would get the job with the agency in Melbourne.
I had a phone interview scheduled with the agency that day (Friday) at 3PM, but we were supposed to send the guy in Bowen our confirmation numbers by 2PM at the latest. I decided to chance it and hope the phone interview went well. It did and I ended up getting a 2nd interview (in-person this time) for the following week! The only problem was when I went to look into flights to Melbourne from Cairns, they were all $500+! Since it is winter (and actually cold in Melbourne), all of the kids on holiday from school must have flown up to Cairns making the return flights more expensive than usual.
Luckily, Ben (Benson’s brother’s best friend) had just moved to Townsville, not too far from Cairns, so I looked into flights to Melbourne from there. The flights were significantly cheaper from Townsville, and I would get to spend some time with Ben in his off-season (he is playing on the Crocs, Townsville’s pro basketball team), and I could even take the bus with the others after all! Bowen is about an hour and a half south of Airlie Beach (8 hours from Cairns by bus) and Townsville was on the way.
With job prospects looking up for all of us, we spent the weekend doing pretty much nothing like before. On Sunday (our last full day in Cairns), we participated in a volleyball tournament at our hostel. Our team name was “Mandy Moore plus four” (Vic thinks Stef looks like Mandy Moore, a fact that she hates haha)! Surprisingly, we kept winning our games even though our playing was not very impressive. We even found ourselves in the finals! The team we were playing against in the finals were hardcore, so we decided that I would play on their team in exchange for one of their players (not exactly an even trade haha). I really think that “Mandy Moore plus four” would have had a chance, but the other team ended up winning - partly due to my amazing serving! We were just proud of how far we made it in the tournament, and we had a great time regardless.
We had one last meal together in Cairns that night, and then prepared ourselves to leave bright and early Monday morning. We woke up early to watch the World Cup final (plays at 4:30AM in Australia) and I was excited that Spain won since it meant I won $10! We had randomly drawn teams and I had gotten Spain yay! Then we left Cairns behind and went to catch our bus.
It was weird thinking that I may not see Amy, Vic, or Mark for a few months if they ended up working in Bowen. I had been traveling with them since I was in Surfer’s Paradise the first time (with the exception of Mackay and Humme’s visit). When the bus reached Townsville, we said our goodbyes (for now!) and they were able to meet Ben for a few minutes at the bus station before they had to re-board.
I had no idea what to expect from Townsville because not many people talk about it. Ben had just arrived the week before, so even he did not know much about the place he would be living. He had found an apartment but would not be able to move into it until August, so in the meantime, the team was paying for him to stay in a hotel downtown. He was nice enough to let me stay with him, so it was no more hostels again for me! With the exception of a few hours each day that Ben had to practice, he was completely free and excited to explore Townsville with me.
Besides sight-seeing, I had another mission for my time in Townsville - to get tan! I knew I would be going to Melbourne next (for maybe the next few months), so I wanted to soak up as much of the warm weather that I could. I spent a lot of time relaxing by the hotel pool soaking up the rays while Ben was at basketball practice. The weather in Townsville was much better than Cairns for the most part - at least the sun came out during parts of the day!
On Wednesday, Ben and I decided to take a ferry to nearby Magnetic Island for the day (only a 20-minute ferry ride from Townsville). We picked the perfect, cloudless day and spent the entire day in paradise. It was epic! Magnetic Island (reminded me a lot of Rottnest Island from earlier in my trip), and we spent the day driving around on scooters (mine was pink!) and swimming in the many bays.
We had rented our scooters for the day and were given a map of scooter routes to take (and more importantly, told where NOT to go). Of course, Ben and I decided to be rebels and definitely took one of the roads we were not supposed to. This road was full of enormous potholes and was actually quite dangerous, but it brought us to some of the most beautiful bays. Alternatively, we could have walked but that was not the point! We were lucky that we did not get caught, because we could have been fined up to $300 and lost our deposits for the scooters...
I knew at some point in the day, I would crash on my scooter. I did of course, but it was not as bad as it could have been. I only scratched my leg a little bit when I exited from the concrete onto the dirt road too quickly. Don’t worry, Zoe (my scooter had a name) was not hurt either.
After a great day of beautiful beaches and sunshine, we reluctantly took the ferry back to Townsville. The next morning, Ben had a basketball practice for a few hours, so I decided to explore Townsville a little more on my own. I had noticed a large red rock called Castle Hill when we drove around, and I decided to climb to the top. Castle Hill towers over all of Townsville and is quite impressive looking. On the other hand, someone drew a large stick figure person on the side of Castle Hill haha which takes a little bit away from its impressiveness. It was still a great hike to the summit, especially since I have not really worked out while I have been travelling!, and there were great views from the top.
I worked my way back down afterward and decided to walk down “The Strand” in Townsville since the weather was nice. “The Strand” is basically the row of beaches in Townsville; it is a very nice walk day or night. There were lots of people out exercising and even people swimming in the ocean between the flags where there were lifeguards. That night I would be flying to Melbourne, so I went back to the hotel and tried to soak up as much sun as I could before heading back to the cold. I would not be arriving until midnight (there is only one flight from Townsville to Melbourne each day) and Renee would be picking me up from the airport.
Going on a few hours of sleep, I had my interview at the agency bright and early Friday morning at 8:30AM. It went really well, and I was hopeful that I would be receiving an offer from them soon.
This morning (Monday), I got a call and I got the job! I would be starting tomorrow doing pretty much the same thing I did in San Francisco. The only difference this time around is me. Since I have not worked for the past 5 months, I definitely have a different approach to work-life balance. I plan to work hard at my new job but within limit, and make sure to remind myself that there are many more important things about life than a career.
That being said, I will probably be taking a break from traveling for a bit so blog entries will be a little less frequent (and probably less entertaining). However, I am only on a 3-month contract with the company, so it is perfect for me. At the end of the 3 months, I can decide to either renegotiate my contract or move on and keep traveling, or even find something else.
So now it’s back to work for me...
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