Ninteenth Stop Mildura

I Arrived in Mildura on the 4th of January. It was strange to be traveling on my own for the first time. I had lined up a job for what I thought was fruit picking but was actually working in a winery.

There was 20 of us staying in the hostle, all guys, all working in the winery. There was 2 french; Ti and Fabrice, 1 south Korean; Han, 4 Germans; Sebastine, Kris, Mirko and Toby, 2 Kiwis; Mark and Steve, 1 Iranian; Majit, 1 Welsh; Osian, 1 half French half English who lives in Belguim; Tom, and 7 english Carl, Rich, Gary, Phil (Stoney), Phil(Lafferty), Alan and Paul.

There was a good atmostphere in the hostle which lead to some legendary nights out. The bond between us all was due to the fact that we didnt like the hostle owner, Peter a Northen Irishman, who lied and conned us the whole time we were there.

We were all split into 3 shifts which rotated every week; 7am-3pm, 3pm-11pm, 11pm-7am. The pay was quite good but we made most of our money at the weekend with double time 12 hour shifts.

The work was not particularly taxing mentaly or phisically so after a few weeks everyone had the hang of what was going on. I was put on the RVFs (Rotating Vacume Filters) basically big drums that had a cement like cake on it which the wine and juice went through to take most of the inpurities out. So for most of the 3 months I spent my time putting 22.5kg bags of cement dust in a hopper for the cake.

Carl's year visa was running out and was selling his car. Igot it for $1500 not knowing exactlly what it was worth. A guy in the winery who comes from dundee used to be a mechanic valued it at $3000. So I got lucky. I also bought a guitar from Fabrice with the intention of learning to play it but not had any luck so far.

Most of us were finishing on the 31st March in the winery so 8 of us went to Adelaide. Gary bought a Camper van so we drove taking Rich, Osh, Tom, Han, Stoney and Sebastian...