Me in the Robinson kitchen

Our last Saturday in sydney

Opera House by night

Harbour Bridge at night

Harbour Bridge at New Year

Thought I should add a few more pics, starting at New Year.

Still in Melbourne

I've now been in Melbourne for about two and a half weeks without finding work but things are looking up.

I had an interview this morning for a job as a sales rep for a toy company and I've been called back for a second interview tomorrow morning.

I also had an interview today with an employment agency which could sort me out with either temporary or contract work, so hopefully by the weekend I'll either have a job or at least some temp work sorted out for next week.

Apart from looking for work I've been seeing a bit more of Melbourne. I was at the Melbourne Museum last week. It was really interesting but the best bit was that it had the set from the Robinson's kitchen in Neighbours. It was the actual one that got used up until 1999 when they rebuilt it.

The weather in Melbourne tends to be in the low twenties with a good few cloudy days but the last couple of days have been nice so I've spent a bit of time down by the Yarra River, sunning myself.

Swag and Mac are still in Surfers' Paradise but are going to be arriving here on Sunday to spend a few days.

Still in Melbourne

I've now been in Melbourne for about two and a half weeks without finding work but things are looking up.

I had an interview this morning for a job as a sales rep for a toy company and I've been called back for a second interview tomorrow morning.

I also had an interview today with an employment agency which could sort me out with either temporary or contract work, so hopefully by the weekend I'll either have a job or at least some temp work sorted out for next week.

Apart from looking for work I've been seeing a bit more of Melbourne. I was at the Melbourne Museum last week. It was really interesting but the best bit was that it had the set from the Robinson's kitchen in Neighbours. It was the actual one that got used up until 1999 when they rebuilt it.

The weather in Melbourne tends to be in the low twenties with a good few cloudy days but the last couple of days have been nice so I've spent a bit of time down by the Yarra River, sunning myself.

Swag and Mac are still in Surfers' Paradise but are going to be arriving here on Sunday to spend a few days.

Left Robinvale (for a few days at least)

Work was baws.

We started on the Thursday. We got picked up at six in the morning and driven down to a warehouse on another farm around around 20km from our house. We had to wait around until about 0830 before everybody else arrived and we started working. We weren't actually picking the grapes, we were pruning them. This involved collecting a box of grapes which was roughly 1ft x 1ft x 1.5ft and going through the box, bunch by bunch, cutting off dead grapes, brown grapes, soft grapes, hard grapes, extra pieces of stem etc. When you finish a box you collect another, then another and on and on and on and... We did that until about 1430 with a half hour break at 1200. By the end of the day my left shoulder was killing me from holding all these bunches of grapes and Swag was complaining about a sore back. We then got a lift back to our house and sat around all day before getting up to go to work the next day for the same again.

We only worked four hours that day because the weather was so hot the pickers had to stop early. On the Saturday we worked for six hours. By this point I was complaining to Swag that, crap as the job was, we weren't working enough money so we'd never save enough to escape. It didn't help that Sunday was our day off. We started walking into town to get some shopping but an old guy with a ute stopped and gave us a lift with us sitting on the back. A bit illegal but it saved us walking.

It rained a bit on Monday morning therefore picking was cancelled, so by this point I was getting pissed off at spending so much time in the house and not working enough to earn any real money.

On Tuesday we worked from 0830 until 1800. By the end of the shift Me and Swag had decided that we were being overworked.

We decided that we had to get out of there and planned to work up until pay day (Friday) then leave on Saturday, head to melbourne and hopefully get a job there for a few months.

On the way back to the house, Brendan, one of the guys who regularly gave us a lift, told us that we were getting our first housemates that day. He explained that three Swedish girls were going to be staying with us for a while. This news prompted Swag and I to exchange a look that said, "The job's not that bad. Maybe we should stay a bit longer."

The Swedish girls arrived shortly after we got home. We tried to have a bit of a chat with them although they were a pretty insular group, making Me and Swag look like the most outgoing, conversational people ever. They went to bed at about 2000.

The next day we worked from 0800 until about 1700. The girls didn't like the job, didn't work the next day and left the day after that. That just steeled our resolve to leave so we picked up our pay on Friday and left on the Saturday morning, Melbourne-bound on a coach.

The thing is that after we got paid on Friday, in cash, we started to doubt whether or not escape was a good idea. We'd earned about $500 in a week which included three short days and a day off. That figure was even after tax and rent which. We started to imagine what we could do with the money we could earn in a fortnight or three weeks. It was just the thought of going back to the warehouse where you felt like a badly chosen extra in a film scene set in a Chinese sweatshop (most of the other people working in the warehouse were Korean or Malaysian) that stopped us from changing our plans.

We arrived in Melbourne at around 1820 on Saturday with no hostel booked. It wasn't difficult to find one nearby so we checked in then headed out for something to eat and a wander round the city.

Melbourne seems nice. It also appears to be a bit more cultural than Sydney with loads of art galleries, theatres, cinemas and free open-air concerts.

After spending a couple of hours walking around we got changed and went to the pub to celebrate our freedom (in the short term at least). After a good few drinks in the hostel's bar we headed up the street to another where a live band was playing I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). We spent another hour or two in there listening to the DJ who followed the band and played some classic Bon Jovi and Reef and stuff.

At about 0215 we weren't sure where to head next. All the clubs across the road looked like classy i.e. expensive strip clubs and we certainly didn't have the money, or undoubtedly the clothes, to get in there so we headed to the one place we knew would serve alcohol for 24 hours. The Crown Casino.

We all know that, in general, successful gambling and drinking are mutually exclusive, but I managed to to buck the trend by winning a whopping $5 playing roulette. Me and Swag got talking to a guy and his girlfriend who were playing roulette next to us. After we cashed in our chips we headed off with them to the club upstairs which was busier than any club we'd been to in Sydney but was a bit too R'n'B for me.

After we left the club at a time which might've been half four in the morning, me and Swag went to the KFC in the casino complex which was ingeniously still open.

We then headed back to the hostel where Swag proceded to bring his KFC meal straight back up. What a lightweight.

Since then we've been job hunting, although on Sunday night we went to the cinema to see Munich which was really good.

I quite like it here but if it doesn't look like I'll have a job by the end of tomorrow I'll need to head back into the middle of nowhere to prune grapes or something until I have a decent amount of money.