We are back in Cairns now after spending the last three weeks working in an outback pub in North Queensland, about half hour outside of the nearest civilisation in Cooktown.

We arrived after a six hour bus journey from Cairns to find out that the girls who's jobs we were taking had only been told that morning that they were now unemployed, so to say it was a little bit awkward would be one hell of an understatement. And things got even better the next day when the pub owner kicked them out of their room to move us in, leaving them nowhere to stay. We should have seen this as a sign, but for some reason still unknown to us, we didn't and there followed the strangest three weeks of our twenty plus years!!!

Once we got to know the girls a bit and explained that we didn't know what was going on, things were a little better, although we still felt bad about them having to stay in a tent while we lived it up in our Safari tent complete with TV and DVD player!! It was like a huge tent (bizarrely enough) on stilts, with quite a big open balcony outside it with a sink, shower and bath and also an area for a table some chairs and a fridge. Once we got used to the noisy Gecko's that lived in every nook and cranny, we were quite comfortable and settled in fairly easily.

The pub was set in six acres of really beautiful surroundings with mountains on one side, fields and farmland as far as we could see on the other side and a river at the back of the pub. Plus there was not a single drop of rain while we were there and every day had blue skies and the sun beating down. The river was safe to swim in as well, which is a rarity up there, as it was above some waterfalls so there were no crocs in it, and it was really nice to sit in the rocks and relax with the water splashing around us.

The work was good too, as the bar was easy to run because it was just cans and bottles (tinnies and stubbies to the locals) and the only thing that resembled a challenge was getting enough froth on the damn coffees!! There was pizza night once a week and a choice of only about three or four meals on the other nights so food orders were simple enough, and after a week we knew all the locals and what they had to drink and how much discount they got. The food always seemed to taste quite good as well even though everything was deep fat fried, even lamb cutlets, and we became mildly addicted to wedges and sour cream. There was also a group of miners who lived at the pub while they were working down the local tin mine, and they were always good for a laugh and a drink after work, and we were really beginning to enjoy ourselves by this stage.

That's when things started to get a little strange!

The first thing we noticed was not opening up in time. We started work at 8:00am and had half an hour to get the float in the till, turn everything on and clean the place down before letting customers in. When we first started we were told that if we wanted breakfast we needed to get there at 7:45am, so we still had time to get everything done, which was fine for us. However, recently neither Pam or Chris (the owners) would let us in the pub until 8:15 and would then stress out when everything wasn't done in time, and would wonder why we would then be serving people with a bowl of Weetbix (they miss the 'a' out for some reason over here) on the bar!

Neither of them seemed to have any idea what the other one did or why either, so when Chris, the chef, went to Cairns once a week to load the truck with beer (told you the place was remote), Pam was left to cook for the night, so that was the night that we all laid low as she couldn't cope with more than a couple of meals at a time, and as soon as the kitchen closed she was on the beer. Not that she was alcoholic or anything, she was just very fond of a not so occasional drink! She didn't understand hypothetical situations either so if we ever asked what to do in a certain situation she would panic that it was happening right now. We once asked her what to do if we ran out of 2ltr bottles of coke, and whether we should use the cans as mixers. She started panicking asking us if we had run out? Why were we asking? What had happened to the coke? Did they need to get some more? She then ran out the back and came back telling us that they still had loads and why hadn't we looked? All this time, we just stood there amazed at the fact that she couldn't grasp such a simple concept that we wanted to know IF it ever happened and not WHEN it happened!

There was also the hotel aspect of the business that basically consisted of four Safari tents (only more basic than ours) and a whole lot of camping ground. Whenever people checked in for camping we simply took their name, car registration and how many was in their group. One day Pam decided that it had always been the case that it should be the number if adults and children separately, and started to have a go at us for doing it wrong. When we pointed out that it had never been done that way before and that we were just copying pages and pages of more than a year's worth of previous entrants, she went deadly quiet, looked around for someone to help her and when she realised there was nobody, she ran out of the back and stayed in her room for a couple of hours! Slightly loopy to say the least!

Apart from Pam, the rest of the job was great, apart from always being put on opposing shifts and never getting our day off together. We worked with another couple who were travelling around and were from Devon originally, and who had been at the pub for seven weeks. The more we got to know Toyah and Stuart (nicknamed Stooby by the deranged Pam that clearly had her eye on him), the better the job became as we could have a good laugh at work, and most nights after the pub had closed were spent out on our deck with a few drinks until the early hours.

As we came to leaving the pub, it turned out that we were all thinking of leaving at the same time with us due to leave on the Thursday and Toyah and Stuart leaving on the Saturday, so when we told Pam she didn't take it too well. The next day Jen and Stuart went out for a drive around in a little jeep that one of the customers had while he had a few drinks, and when they got back we all discussed getting a 4 wheel drive of our own for a few days, but we realised that we wouldn't have time when we got back to Cairns so it was forgotten about for a while.

A couple of days later we were having a few drinks after work out on the deck when Stuart and Jen went back into the pub to grab some more drinks. Inside they were confronted by a very drunk Pam who started shouting and swearing and saying that as we were all unhappy, we should just make the next day our last! When they got back to the deck and told me and Toyah what had happened we all just sat there in shock not really knowing what to do. We had all had enough of the pub, and knew Pam was raving mad, but none of us expected that.

We made up our minds that if Pam didn't want us working there any more then we wouldn't. Starting right there and then. So we all packed up as best we could after a few drinks and by 3:00am we were all ready to leave. After a few hours sleep we got up nice and early and had everything in Betty (Toyah and Stuart's car) by 7:30am, and after saying goodbye to and having a beer with the miners who had just got back from their night shift, we were on our way.

We stopped at Cooktown for a much needed fry up for breakfast and sat there imagining how exactly Pam was going to cope with only one member of staff until Chris came back with the truck full of drink. The most worrying thought of the morning was that three weeks ago, not one of us would even consider leaving someone in such a mess, and it was quite disturbing to see just how far we had all been pushed by just one person in such a short space of time.

On the way back to Cairns we stopped at the side of the road to leave our little mark on the rock face, knowing that it would also be the road that Chris would be taking to get back to the pub, and then continued on into Cairns.

When we got back, we wandered around town and happened to see Chris's brother sitting outside the bank that the Lion's Den used, so assuming Chris would be inside, we continued on a little bit quicker! We have just booked ourselves a twin cab 4wd Toyota for the next couple of days and are planning ourselves a little road trip, so we will be back in Cairns again in a few days.