Meet the locals

We are gradually settling in to living here in Mingenew, probably the smallest 'town' in Australian history! It's weird how you get used to living in a place like this, with pretty much nothing to do, but I think we're beginning to understand how these people enjoy living here, as if this is what you're used to, then it's a nice place to live. I guess that was what we couldn't quite get our heads round given that we're used to 24 hour tescos, drive thru McDonalds and not being so far from your next door neighbours that you can't see them! It has given us an opportunity to get to know the real Australia, that I'm sure most backpackers don't even touch on, which is pretty cool. It doesn't get much realer than this, most of our regulars have just come in from a day shearing sheep, and one guy I met said he worked for 8 years out in the bush, hunting kangaroo, going for weeks without seeing another human being! There are so many locals that we are living with and each one is interesting...in their own way! First of all there is Lyn, the Landlady. She makes Pat Butcher look attractive and I certainly wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley. She's pretty scary and we're always on tiptoes around her making sure we don't do anything wrong, although one of the German backpackers said she always picks one worker to be mean to...we are yet to see whether it's myself or Nicola! On the contrary, her Husband Greg, the Landlord is so laid back he's practically horizontal and is pretty much your stereotypical Aussie. He's got a beard, an earring, sports a vest and shorts, and can be seen sipping on his favourite tipple as early as 10 every morning. The 'head' chef is Zane, when you see him you can't really imagine he's a chef given that the size of his gut prevents him from being able to get close enough to the stove to cook anything decent. He's actually quite young, although he's minus at least 4 of his front teeth and chooses an alternative kind of chef whites, in the form of hiking boots, shorts and an 'amusing' t-shirt emblazoned with things like 'so many fish, so few sickies'. He's a bit weird to talk to, the other night we were chatting at the bar and he randomly just started having a nose bleed, didn't seem too bothered and simply said 'oh not again', and on a separate occasion, he just started drooling. No lie. There are a few other characters but I will save them for another day, oh and just so I keep you up to date, in her usual run of form, Nic has managed to attract a lad that lives at the caravan park. She insists he's not interested but I can see the look of love in his eyes! Ha ha!

First impressions of Mingenew

OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. We drove about 5 hours North from Perth and found ourselves confronted with a 'town' famous for its grain producing and wildflowers. We knew this place was going to be banging. In under a minute we had driven past the town and so turned around in an old petrol station that was 'open Tuesdays'. Good God. It wasn't hard to find the pub we are going to be working in as it was the only one, believe me it was hard to spot...the town has a bakery and a corner shop as well, it's practically heaving! We arrived on a Friday night and were greeted by Lena and Sally, 2 German backpackers who we are soon to be replacing, that were working there. Pretty soon the place was busier than we expected but apparently this was only because the whole town were expecting us and so came along to scope us out. It feels good to be popular, just a shame the average age is 60 and you're not welcome if a) you're skinny or b) you have a full set of teeth (the Schein could make a killing around here). Fortunately the place feels slightly younger because there are a group of drillers that are living at the hotel, and make the evenings a bit more interesting. They have a giant oil rig about 20 minutes from here and a stretch of land only a mere 80000 acres wide, and they are drilling away and are about 2km deep at the moment. There's two groups of them, you either work 6am to 6pm or 6pm to 6am, everyday for 2 weeks, ouch! We went to have a look the other night and it was pretty impressive and interesting because it's not something you'd come across very often in the UK!

So far the work has been pretty easy as I've worked in a pub before, the main difference is that there are so many bloody beers here! Honestly, there's about 4 draught beers but then about 50 different cans and stubbies (that's bottles to us), and each local has there own choice, and by now the German girls know exactly what each of them drink before they've even stepped in the pub, and that's service! So we are gradually learning all of them and how as it's so hot here they don't simply have a cellar like at home, they have about 3 different cool rooms and then the drinks either get put in a fridge or an esky (ie big cool box with lots of ice), oh and no one really drinks pints! Add to that the fact that we didn't realise we were employed as a piece of meat to be gawked at! Apparently the other day a newspaper came along to do a spread on the paper and Nic was in some of the photos. You can imagine Nic was a bit shocked when one of the managers so proudly proclaimed to the photographer that 'the backpackers are employed for the lads....we have had two of them marry locals so far!'. Oh. My. God. Believe me I'm not making any plans to put on 10 stone and lose my teeth in an effort to become Miss Hillbilly 2008.

We have a job!

Given the massive amount of backpackers in Perth and our usual run of luck in most things, we weren't expecting much to pop up on the job front. Indeed in our first place we were practically offered a job in McDonalds. However we asked at another place about live in jobs out in the country and a really good opportunity arose! It's in a place about 5 hours North of Perth, presumably in the middle of nowhere boasting all of 1 street, but we get free accommodation, free food, and a good wage on top of that, working in a hotel doing bar, kitchen and cleaning work. Apparently it's really busy because of the mining in the area, but we were reassured to hear that the hotel already has 2 German hostages, sorry, workers that that have been there for a while. So it can't be that bad, but I'm sure it will provide us with some stories!

Perth

Perth is hot. No no, Perth is BLOODY hot! Sweating before breakfast just isn't a fun game to play. I've been to some hot places before, but this just takes the biscuit, it is just pure heat, even the breeze doesn't offer any relief because its hot air. Standing in front of a hair dryer would be more pleasant. Ok rant over, but you get my point. In between jumping from shade to shade we have been to the Museum of Western Australia, which was quite interesting with lots of stuffed animals, and we went to the Botanical Gardens which were great! They provide a nice view of the city from up on high and well, it's not so damn hot. So we stayed there for a while! Other than that Perth seems a very nice place, nowhere near as busy as Sydney or Melbourne, but then that probably makes it nicer! Oh and they also have free buses, bonus!

Perth Hills

When we were in Melbourne we were advised that Perth was the place to be, and they were practically giving away jobs there. So we thought we'd head that way. So did every other backpacker in Oz. Trying to find accomodation in Perth was next to impossible, with most places booked out for weeks in advance, we even heard today that some backpackers had to sleep on the streets because of the problem! Due to this we booked a place in the city but then had to head to the outskirts of town for a few days to bide our time. We arrived in Perth Hills, about 40km from the city, to a little shack of a hostel, complete with resident kangaroos that came up and said hello everyday! It was really nice but there wasn't much to do, not that 'Camel riding and Tea Rooms' 10 minutes away counts as 'nothing' of course. Then we found a place called 'The Maze' which was a big kids dream! It consisted of 3 mazes, mini golf, frisbee golf, and it had a koala sanctuary! We drew at frisbee golf (not a game to be played in the scorching heat unless you're a fan of fetching your frisbee from out of a tree) but mini golf just got ugly. I will admit that Nic won the first game, as I had a rather 'tricky' hole that took me 10 goes to complete, but the second game a similar thing happened and Nic stopped playing because she was so convinced of her victory. She is wrong. She still claims that she was triumphant twice over, but I beg to differ I tell thee, and we have only just started speaking again since the ugliness.

Fremantle

After Margaret River we went to a place called Bunbury, which boasts it is a dolphin mecca. We saw none. We sped off to the North and to a place called Fremantle, which is Perth's supposedly cooler cousin, with lots of nightlife and things to do. We stayed in yet another hostel where everyone seemed to live and work there, and it was very much like staying in someone else's bedroom. We met a lovely young chap (read 'idiot') called Dean, from Manchester, who had arrived in Fremantle 3 months ago and still hadn't left, slowly boozing his money away, and told us that it was the greatest place on earth and that whether we liked it or not we would eventually find ourselves working there. We decided to prove 'Deano' wrong and only stayed for a couple of nights, not before visiting Fremantle jail, which was pretty awesome! We had a tour from a former prison guard, called Jim (!) and he was from Clydebank in Scotland, but he assured me he hadn't had a previous career at Henry Schein before he emigrated. He showed us about and saw everything including the gallows! Other than that there wasn't much to do, oh except we went to officially the most boring museum in the world. Even the people working there looked like they were losing the will to live, not suprising it was all about fishing up old twigs from the sea and stuff like that.