Moving on: St. George

We left Gayndah late in the afternoon on Wednesday, May 30th after our heartbreaking goodbye to the German girls, a last load of laundry, and some lunch. Our destination: St. George, Queensland following another of our German friends, Henning. We managed to get him a job in Gayndah and now he was returning the favor. Australian geography is not your forte, I’ll offer a quick lesson. A high majority of Australians live on the coastline – either in or between the big cities (Darwin, Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, or Perth). The farther inland you go, the more likely you are to find kangaroos or emus than people. St. George, as it happens to lie, is the second to last town inland. Really, only one small town lies between St. George and the center of Australia – vast expanses of desert uninhabited by humans.

The drive was somber and long at about 700 km. The scenery in the Outback is very much the same throughout: shrubs, bushes, and the occasional gumtree. That is until we neared about the halfway point of the trip when the bushes and shrubs turned into seemingly endless wheat fields. The area is so flat, that for about 3 hours we passed consistently frequent signs warning of flood danger. There was reminiscent talk of the good times we’d had in Gayndah. And there was terrifying talk of returning in 3-4 weeks’ time to Gayndah, without our German Angels. Complicating our anxiety was the fact that we received a call from Henning giving us a brief rundown of the job in St. George. He explained it was long hours and little pay. The call was both a warning and a disclaimer. But, we told him we had no better options and were coming regardless. If only we knew what we were getting ourselves into.

Our two day trip was halved by a night’s stay in Dalby, which is a rather large town, for Australian standards on the first night. It was the first time we had seen traffic lights in almost 2 months. The thought of leaving good friends in Gayndah and heading to yet another slave-labor job made us all dreadfully anxious. We coped with the thoughts by focusing on the more distant future. We would make plans to meet up with the girls before they left Australia and in a few months we would have sufficient money make our escape to Asia. But, coping was futile as we sat in the van, navigating our way to the place we were trying ignore. Clouds covered the sky casting an eerie light on the last few hours of the drive, thus adding to the emotional angst we were facing. Plus, we began to notice dead dingoes hanging from roadside gumtrees – a warning sign if I have ever seen one. What kind of callous, unforgiving place were we edging towards?

Luckily, we pulled into St. George in the early afternoon, giving us a chance to see the town before dark. It’s another one street town; however, St. George boasts two grocery stores! I take this and the clearing sky as a good sign. We buy some groceries and meet our boss-to-be, Nicholas, outside the store. Arriving to the store with him was Daniel, another new German recruit who had just travelled two days by bus from Sydney. While we waited for Daniel to buy groceries, Nicholas explains to us his plan. We would be staying at a place in town and he would pick us up every day at 7, drive 30 minutes to work, and be back by 5pm. We would be pruning grape vines and pulling the refuse into the middle of the row at 90 cents a tree. “How many trees can we expect to prune in a day?” we ask. He skirts the question and rambles something off about guys being about to earn three or four hundred dollars a day. He expects the job to last 2-3 more weeks, which works out perfectly with our schedule to return to Paul Slack’s farm.

Once Daniel exists the store with his supplies, Nicholas a few blocks to the accommodations in the ‘outskirts’ of town. He shows us around before he heads back to his own home. The setup is actually very nice (we have lived out of a van for 4 months) - we get a roof, a bed, walls, a shower, and a kitchen! It’s not until 6 pm that the only two people currently working for Nicholas, Henning and an English fella named Joe, return from work (remember 7am start time). They tell us that in eleven hours of work, they made about $100 dollars, were shot at by unknown people in the vineyard, pulled countless thorns from their pants, all while trying to not attract too many kangaroo ticks. Turnover at this place is astoundingly high: one guy had left that very day and many more earlier that week. It seems everyone would endure one grueling week until payday, then bail. That was precisely Henning and Joe’s plan as well.

After hearing Henning and Joe’s account of their day, our heads start scrambling for another option because if we can’t think of something better, we may have to stay to give pruning a shot. Just as our new friend Joe, was telling us, “you literally have to think of this job as a complete humorous experience,” a spark of luck fell upon us. This spark came in the form of a voice message from our long lost buddy, Trailer Dave (from the same apple farm in Orange but not to be confused with that asshole farmer Tractor Dave). He and his wife, Michelle, had been working for 3 weeks on a citrus farm near Mildura, NSW and could get us a job. For a few hours, we tried to get a hold of him for more details, but the phone just kept on ringing.

Still, with no better option, we cook dinner. Four others have showed up to the place of rest. A young guy, a mechanic apprentice, was nice enough. He explained to us the reason of the hanging dingoes: ranchers would hang dingoes to warn other ranchers of the presence of the deadly dingoes in the area. Supposedly, ranchers would often lose hundreds of sheep in one night due to a pack of dingoes that kill entire herds sheep just for fun. We met Kangaroo Hunter and his not-so-lovely wife. Kangaroo hunter was a cold, contentious man wearing a heavy leather cowboy hat and spitting tobacco. We showed up in colorful clothes, flip flops, driving a VW van, so he was, to say the least; quite unkind to the three new Yanks. He especially felt the need to throw a few remarks out to the Environmental Engineer (which obviously makes one a Greenie, of the Australian Green Party and all-around tree hugger). Kangaroo Hunter and his not-so-lovely wife made a living, well, hunting kangaroos every night. We also met Kangaroo Hunter’s friend, who was a fair bit more pleasant and cosmopolitan than Kangaroo Hunter, but a true Redneck in his own right. He even pulled out a laptop to show a picture of a huge bonfire that he witnessed somewhere in the bush. My initial grudges toward Kangaroo Hunter transformed slightly from hearty distaste to pity as he tried, quite unsuccessfully, to read something on his friend’s computer screen.

I finally get a hold of Trailer Dave and he tells me tales of the ‘best farm in Australia, selling fruit overseas, personal caravans, great wages, guaranteed work, amazing fruit, etc.’ However, it was still another 2 days drive from St. George in the middle of the outback. Seeing how I barely trust the van to make it off Nicholas’ property, this is a big deal. Plus, it was in the opposite direction of Paul Slack, whom we have already promised to return to in 3 weeks. Above all else, we have learned that Trailer Dave talks his talk, usually with a layer of bullshit as thick as his beer belly. But there was a tinge of sincerity in his voice that I had yet to hear from him until this call. His persuasive spiel wavered on the edge of fatherly advice and deep concern. It was this whiff of real compassion that earned my conviction. But, how to convince your friends that this was actually the one time the guy was not just telling fibs? Knowing the decision should be discussed, I tell Dave we would call him back the next day with an answer.

A long debate ensued. But it was decided that we would leave first thing in the morning. After a good night’s sleep in a warm room in real beds, we woke early while it was still dark, showered, breakfasted, and packed our stuff back in the van. We left just about the time Nicholas should have been arriving to take us to work and I was nervous he would arrive before we bolted. The sun was starting to come up by the time we piled into the van and drove away. We turned the first corner and into view came Nicholas’ van heading to pick us up. I chuckled at the image of his disgruntled face when he saw his three new prospects drive away and I only regret not being able to see his reaction.