Ok so i think I left off a few months ago with me and Mike heading to Tasmania! Well- we ended up having a change of plan there because we got a fruit picking job further north in Victoria, Rochester. We got the train that morning feeling excited to be going to some full time work but also apprehensive as to how it was going to turn out. After about a 5hour train ride which provided us with no scenery but dusty sheep we arrived. When we got off the train there was about 15 others with backpackers all turning up to the same work. We were told to ring the guy when we arrived-however none of us any decent signal and when we did get through we got his answer machine-not the best of starts. Fortunately for us some other backpackers then came walking down the road and said they had arrived earlier in the day and were doing the same work so could take us to the accommodation we were to stay in. We all congregated on the balcony and then a few of us went for a bit of an explore around the place. Wow! the place was appalling. The two kitchens where about 6x4m and that supposed to be good enough for 80 of us, the girls bathroom (singular!-prob 30-40girls) had overflowing rubbish bins and was flooded. Me and Mike very quickly decided that we didn't fancy living in a slum-especially as we found out that we wouldn't be getting our own room either as promised. We and another couple went to find a campsite about 5mins away that we'd found out about. Although the cooking facility was even worse at least the bathroom was ok. We decided that if the work was ok we might decide to go and buy a tent and stay there. We went back to the accommodation where the boss finally turned up and started playing the game of trying to find everyone a bed. We told him that the 4 of us would only need the bed for one night as we'd go and stay in the campsite. 12 of us ended up getting left over with no beds so they took us to a separate house. Yes we did think about horror films at this point! :s We arrived at a house that smelt and was filthy. There were 3 rooms each with either 3 or 4 single beds and then there was 4 or 5 mattresses in the lounge. We got ourselves in one of the rooms, later that night the news had spread that we were staying in a house which was actually better than the original accommodation. So in our room on the other single mattress another couple came and shared the mattress. The next day we got picked up to go to work and the short story is things just didn't improve so after two hours we, and 3 others left. It was a long walk back but we decided we'd prefer to do that than keep working and not end up getting paid for it. After about an hour walking someone very kindly stopped and gave all 5 of us a lift back to Rochester. It would have taken us at least another 3hours. We went and booked a bus to a city called Bendigo. Later that afternoon when we went for the bus we saw everyone that had arrived at the same time as us either getting on our bus or booking one for the following day as ours was full. It seemed the only staff that stayed were Korean. Safe to say Harvest trail (the national harvest labour company) got lots of phone calls of complaint as they were the ones that everyone had gotten the work from. They were shocked by the stories and were going to investigate.

We decided on Bendigo because it was only a few hours away and was one of the largest inland cities. We made our way to the backpackers but all his double rooms were taken however he offered us a room in his bnb for the same price, just we wouldn't get breakfast which was fair enough. We arrived and thought we were in heaven! The room had a queen sized bed which was very comfy and en-suite bathroom. We could also access a wireless internet which meant we could look for jobs very easily. We ended up staying there about 10 days and although we couldn't find any work we signed up to a programme called help exchange (www.helpexchange.net). It was where people offer accommodation and sometimes meals in exchange for you helping them for a certain amount of hours per day with whatever they need e.g. redecorating, babysitting, farm work. We found a place to stay in Mildura which was a few hours north of where we were. They offered a double room and all meals in return for 4hours work each day, which turned out to be very flexible. They also offered use of their old car should we find work which we were hoping to do as a Mildura is known to be a huge fruit picking area.

We arrived in Mildura to stay with Jennifer and Stuart, their children Rachael (6), Vienna (3), another help exchange couple, Pauline and Julian (French), Anakin (Cat) and 12 horses. Jen and Stu had just bought another 6 hectares of land joined to there's which needed turning into paddocks for the horses. This involved mainly fencing but then hanging gates and getting water to all the paddocks too. Mike also did the cooking most nights and I spent a lot of time looking after and playing with the kids. we thought our fortunes here had turned as we went into the local harvest office and got work straight away. This time we were picking grapes for sultanas. The framers were really nice and they provided morning tea, which was hot drinks and then home baking-yum! however we weren't able to earn anywhere near decent money as there wasn't a lot of grapes on the vines. The framers were really apologetic about this explaining that that year they'd had between 2-20% of the water they were supposed to get and needed. The regular pickers that do it every year said it was the worst crop in about 30years, just our luck! We worked on the farm anyway for 8days until all the grapes had been picked and there was nothing left for us to do. We then went back to job hunting, we got 1.5 days work on another farm. Again really nice farmers, with even more home baking and lots and lots of it (Mike was very happy) but this time we were picking wine grapes. The crop was better but unfortunately the winemakers tell the farmers how much grapes they want (which gave us our 1.5 days) and then the rest of the unwanted crop just sit on the vines to go rotten-such a waste! After a month of only finding 9.5 days work we found a job a couple of hours south in Tooleybuc just over the border in New South Wales. We decided to leave and try it out as Mildura just didn't have any work going. While we had been with the family we had visited the Gem shop next door to their house, I got the chance to ride one of the horses and we had taken the girls for a swim in the Murray river.

I was sad to leave the girls but we had to move on. The nearest bus stop to Tooleybuc was in Piangil 5km away so we got into there at about 8am in the morning. The boss had told us to give him a ring when we arrived and he'd come and pick us up. We went for breakfast first as we though 8am may be a little early. The place was the local shop/cafe, which along with the post office was pretty much all Piangil had. We then phoned the boss at about 9, no answer! We tried again numerous times between then and 10.30. The lady from the cafe ended up driving by and noticed that we were still outside the post office so very kindly drove us to Tooleybuc. She dropped us off at the pay park where there was a pay phone for us to keep ringing and shelter from the sun (very hot day). So to keep in running with our Oz luck the pay phone only accepted phone cards, no coins and the shop didn't sell the cards for the phone. Typical!! Long story short, we found out the boss lived in the caravan park opposite and we met a few of his employees. They had supposed to have been paid on Fri, it was now Sun and still no pay, boss had gone to Melbourne for weekend. Crop was really bad, farmers verbally abuse employees- we decided enough was enough we'd stay in the pub that night then head to Melbourne the next day and book flights back to New Zealand. By this point we had only just enough money for flights back to NZ and nothing else so we flew back into Christchurch and are currently staying with Mike's parents. We have absolutely no money but now have a new plan!!

We are just waiting for Mike's Dutch passport (his dad is dutch and then he can stay and work in uk as long as he wants) to arrive and then thanks to a very generous loan from mum and dad (thanks heaps, will pay you back asap :) ) we will be heading to the UK. We are going to live with mum and dad and find jobs (again thanks mum and dad, we promise to behave ourselves!). Pay mum and dad back obviously and then save save save. We will then hopefully be heading to Canada around May next year where we hopefully will still have a job offer (very good idea to have work already lined up especially if the world is suffering from some huge economic crisis!!!).

The positives- we have survived 3months of absolute disaster in Australia and have come out without killing each other and still wanting to spend time together and travel! We also know exactly what we would like to do in Australia now so when we have some money we hope that we can come back for a couple of weeks holiday and actually see some of the country!!

So to all of you back in the UK, we will hopefully be seeing you very very soon! :)

Lots of love, hope you are all keeping well xxx