Monday 11 August . The horrible alarm clock burst into life at 5am and we slowly dragged ourselves out of the van into the darkness as today was our first days work at the banana farm. We drove the forty five minutes to Tully from our camp at Mission Beach and then followed the mini bus full of workers to the farm. We did however lose the mini bus as it was driving too fast and poor old Sheila couldn't keep up. We just followed the road and when we drove through fields and fields of banana trees we knew we were in the right place. Vicki was assigned to the packing sheds by our boss who strangely resembled a bad tempered umpa lumpa and I was sent out with a crew of guys to pick. I wasn't expecting the physical pain that was to follow. These banana trees were steroid pumped monsters and the bunches of bananas were averaging at about fifty kilos. I knew from my weigh in on our skydive that I only weigh sixty-five, so needless to say I struggled a bit. The bunches were quite high and in order to get them off the tree you chop the soft water filled trunks and as the tree falls toward you, grab the end of the bunch, walk into it catching the bunch on your shoulder then swing the machete behind you to cut it off taking care not to be flattened by the tree or scalp yourself. There is only one bunch per tree. You then struggle the walk back to the trailer on the back of the tractor carrying fifty kilos on your shoulder with all the weight pin pointed on one or two hard uncomfortable green barstard bananas. The bunches are covered by a big plastic bag and you get various animals falling or jumping out of the bag as you stagger to the trailer through mouthfuls of spider webs. Mostly frogs and mice but I did get a shock when a huge rat jumped out of mine. A couple of times I was flattened by not catching the bunch properly as the tree fell and ending up covered in mud as the ground was very boggy, Tully is the wettest place in Oz. At break time we all went to this barn and a huge bong was brought out and a cereal bowl full of weed was passed round. I was very tempted but didn't think I could catch a giant weight falling from a tree while I was stoned out of mine. We slept at the farm and after day two we quit due to swollen shoulders. We drove north to Cairns to find work in a restaurant or a hotel. Although we had two days of pay to come we were now down to our last $20 so we stocked up on noodles and hunted endlessly for work. The trouble with Cairns is that there are hundreds of backpackers looking for work and not enough jobs to go round. After three days and countless agencies we were offered a job housekeeping for three days in Cairns then to move up to Port Douglas for more regular work at the Sheraton. We spent our last dollar and called home before starting work. We worked three days at a resort called The Lakes which was plush holiday apartments. We soon yielded the benefits of cleaning apartments as there is always tons of food left behind after people check out so we stocked the van with as much as we could fit in. We moved up to start work in Port Douglas on the 18th of August and worked out that we needed to stay here for two months in order to save enough to move on. We needed to get the ball joints fixed on Sheila, get rego which is the equivalent to road tax and insurance and save petrol and food dosh. Our first day at the Sheraton was unpaid as apparently we were being trained, although we done a full days work and after cleaning one hotel room you can do a hundred really its not rocket science. So for the next eight weeks we worked, ate and slept. We started camping down by the beach but after a week or so we had a warning from the council stuck to the windscreen saying that our details have been taken and not to camp on the side of the road as it is illegal, but to check into a registered camp site you free loading cheapskates. We were woken up one morning by what sounded like a hose pipe battering the side of the van then it would move off and then spray us again. We thought it was the council cleaning the BBQs as they do most mornings and were having a little fun. After the third spray we were slightly annoyed and jumped out of the van only to find no-one there, it was just the sprinklelers switching on. We had the ball joints fixed on Sheila and it only cost just short of $300 which was far better than the $800 we had been quoted in Sydney. We found a deli in town that does a mega hot sausage called a bum burner so I had to try one. I opted for the hottest chilli coated bum burner and only managed half of it as it was ridiculously hot and the next day well f***……I'll say no more. Talking of hot stuff …. I look great in Speedos or budgie smugglers as they call them out here… no but seriously, hot stuff… we went to a Mexican restaurant and had a slap up meal and they had all these weird and wonderful hot sauces. Lots had really good names that I now forget but one sticks in my mind, it was called the 'Haemorrhoid Helper' and it was bright green. On the bottle it said 'Burns both ways, if you think its hot when you eat wait till you take the seat'. As well as working in Housekeeping we purchased black trousers and shoes and done some evening work waiting on. We were serving food at a government function down in Cairns and there was a band playing on stage then they introduced a special guest and Leo Sayer came on and violated our ears for about two hours. It was quite comical to be serving food and to be watching this stroppy little dwarf stomping around on stage. A week or so later we went to the Clink Theatre in Port Douglas to watch a one man show called The Pitch. The theatre was very quaint and only seated about sixty or seventy people. The show blew us away it was so funny, it was about a guy who is going to try and sell his film pitch to some directors. He basically tells you the whole film plot diving around the stage all sweaty jumping into each character and he is really infused with the plot, this goes on for most of the show then at the end he gets into the boardroom to give his pitch and gets all flustered and screws the whole thing up. It was the funniest thing we have seen in a long time we had tears rolling down our cheeks and you all know how loud Vicki can laugh and scream….well she did. The hotel we worked in had lots of Koreans working there and some of them have very strange names. They choose their English names before coming over to work in Oz and we worked with a Sun and a Shiny and one girl was even called Merry Christmas. We sold the trainers that Vicki had bought for housekeeping but rubbed to a Korean girl called Minj. Whilst I was making a bed in one of the rooms I had a little accident, no not one of those accidents, I always turn the ceiling fan and air-conditioning up to full blast when I start a room because its bloody hot and this one day I wafted the sheet to go over the bed and it got caught in the ceiling fan. I just stood there transfixed watching this sheet get chewed round and round wrapping up and getting smaller and smaller then it jammed and the fan gave an almighty bang and was left hanging out of the plaster board. I turned it off then undone the sheet and called maintenance claming that I just turned it on and it fell off the ceiling. We have met lots of fellow backpackers through work and have decided that most (not us!) fall into two categories. The first are the ones that don't really do much or go anywhere they just work, hang around in hostels watching DVDs and getting pissed every night, these are called Slackpackers. And then you have the other end of the spectrum, backpackers who have their mummy and daddy's money to burn and always eat out and go on every tour possible, these are called Flashpackers . We fall into neither category for we have no money but we do lots and we hate hostels as they are full of drunk English teenagers, we are just Travellers or POPs (People of planet). We had been working now for a month and had moved camp to a place about twenty minutes from work on the Mowbray River. A friend from work called Brenden had been camping there and invited us to join him. The river has several big crocs in it and our camp was down a dirt track in a clearing in the woods near the crocs. We were fishing one day and got some really good sightings of them swimming past. At night there are lots of animal noises in the bushes, most of the time it is just bandicoots, they come hopping to look at us sniff the air with their shrew like noses then dart back into the bush again. Its quite spooky sometimes as it is really dark and a couple of times there has been rustling in the bushes and all three of us have been ready to mount the roo bars and climb on the roof of the van in fear of being eaten by a roaming croc. One night we had a cane toad infestation in the camp, we heard rustling of dried leaves then about thirty toads all hopped up from the same direction and just sat there looking at us. Cane toads are poisonous and apparently if you lick their backs you hallucinate, we did not try this. The worst thing about the woods is the bugs. You get eaten alive by mosquitoes and sand flies and these strange brown beetle things that also bite. Sometimes you wake up in the morning and there is a fat mossie flying round the van, so full from feasting on you all night and you splat him and about four pints of blood explode out. Quite often we'll be sat out at night having a glass or two of wine and a locus or a praying mantis will fly past your ear sounding like a B52 bomber and will land on the table. The praying mantis are harmless but certainly have balls, if you put your hand near one it turns round and wants to start a fight with you its like the pepperami of the insect world. Brenden had been camping in this spot on his own for weeks, a brave man, out in the woods in the middle of nowhere. He is a top guy and we have struck up a really good friendship with him, He will be missed when we hit the road. Branden's girlfriend Alanna will be joining him soon then they plan to do a similar route to us so we may well meet again. My memory of Brenden will be him sat playing his guitar with half a coconut tied to one foot tapping it as a beat and a jam jar lid full of bottle caps under the other foot as a tambourine. Oh and when we first arrived in the woods I noticed several piles of rubbish and I b****ed about people littering thinking that it was fly tippers but sometimes on Brenden's days off when he's bored he walks around cleaning up the woods of all the rubbish and putting it in piles then he steals a wheelie bin from the local park fills it and takes it back. We finished work on the 5th of October and had lots of drinks in the woods with Brenden and two girls we met from Western Australia, Natalie and Amanda who were sleeping in a car. We decided before we left the East coast we wanted to go out on the reef one last time. We managed to blag that we were living in Port Douglas and with our old work ID badges managed to get a 30% discount as locals. We went on a boat called Wavedancer which is a large catamaran and we went to the Low Isles. This is an island on the reef with a sheltered lagoon and is a popular place for sea turtles. We spent the whole day in the water and saw three turtles. They are so beautiful and graceful its as if they are flying underwater. One of them was down quite deep and you could only just see it as it is quite well camouflaged against the coral. I dived down and touched it hoping it would swim up to the surface so we could get a better look but it didn't move. I dived down again and gently picked it up and it turned around and looked at me with a face that looked like a hundred year old man then slowly swam up towards Vicki then we followed it for a while swimming behind him in ore. They are quite big too, bigger than a dustbin lid. (I cannot believe I just compared a beautiful and graceful turtle with a dustbin lid). We saw lots of big fish and several Nemo's, Vicki also saw a reef shark. Vicki grasped diving down on this outing and got quite good at it blowing the water out of her snorkel when she surfaced then diving again. We found sea cucumbers and several star fish. This was by far the most colourful coral we have seen and the best snorkelling trip yet. We added up how many times we have been on The Great Barrier Reef and with the Whitsunday's I think we have snorkelled about ten different sites. We plan to do more snorkelling on the West coast as up north in Darwin you cant go in the sea because its stinger season now and besides you would get eaten by a croc. The day after our reef trip we stocked the van with food, water and fuel and hit the road heading for Cape Tribulation. This stage of work is done and boy it feels good to stretch those tyres and drive on roads we have never been on heading to places we have never seen.