Distance to Darwin and first farm work (12. - 13.06.2006)

During our drive to the Locker Valley and Gatton we saw the first street distance signs to Darwin. We were thinking of going there directly for a short moment. But in the end we decided to do a short stop for some farm experience in Gatton. We spoke to some German girls in a hostel in Forrest Hill, they and another hostel owner told us that there isn¥t a lot of farm work available at the moment because they did not have enough rain and everything is too dry. Anyway we met some other Germans on our unofficial campground and they told us that we could have one of their jobs for the following day as they had two jobs. So we went to the local pub that had to close at 10 pm. But after pre-ordering some more beers we could stay til the Australian soccer match started and watch it there. Except of us there were heaps of Japanese people watching the game. Unfortunately at 12.30 am we were really tired and decided to leave the pub, besides the game was quite boring – only one goal for Japan til we left. The next day we heard from Flo that Australia was doing really good in the soccer and we were really surprised and could not believe what was going on.
The next morning we had to get up at 5.30 am to be at the meeting point for the fruit picking job at 6 am. We managed to find this guy for the job and he took us with him. Then we had to cut iceberg lettuce. There was a tractor and about 10 people in a row, cutting the lettuce and throwing it in boxes. After only three hours Silke had such a bad back pain that she had to quit this new job. Dirk was sociable and quitted with her. We then decided that we have to find another farm job where we can pick somewhere higher.