And we keep on working!!! ;)

Hello to everybody around the world, this time from Rainbow Beach (about 200 km North of Brisbane)!

You are wondering what we are doing down here while we should be 1000 km further North in Bowen working day after day after day? Hm, you are quite right in asking that question! Well, we are pursueing our tactic of earning money by spending it!

No, seriously, you might not believe me, but we actually set out to find some work after I wrote to you last time. Thanks to the good preparation (Danke fuer das Weihnachtsgeschenk, Mama) it took us one phonecall and we had a job as tomato pickers for the next day! Easy, so we thought. The truth was quite different but in order to understand, you'll have to keep in mind that we are experienced travellers now, not used to any kind of prearangements, fixed planning, excessive physical activity, stress, ... we are just easy-going! ;)

So, the first shock we had to survive was the alarm clock that went off at 5.30 in the morning! Can you imagine that?!? No, probably not, but we were not used to that kind of offence anymore and it felt quite wrong to get up while it was still dark and cold outside and while we were still tired! The second shock was that we couldn't spent 2 hours over our breakfast, we couldn't even get some tea going (which means that actually the day was already lost!). 6.30 am found us half awake and still freezing cold on the farm and at 7 am we were placed on the machine and off we went. There was a kind of assembly-line between the two of us where we had to place the tomatos that we ripped of the plants and it was not easy at all to keep up with the rhythm of the machine that moved forwards continuously. Moreover, all the red tomatos where at the bottom of the plants which meant that we couldn't feel our backs anymore after 5 minutes and we regularly ate some leaves and stuff and scratched off the skin of our arms while trying to reach the vegies.

However, there were good sides to our work as well. The sun was shining down on us hour after hour burning our skin and cooking what was left in our brains after hours of monotonous work, all body parts exposed to the plants were turning a charming green-brownish and the pauses were over after only seconds (it seemed). In the end, I found myself up on top of the machine sorting all the tomatos all the pickers sent up to me and there the wind almost blew me off and I went back from being grilled to being frozen again. By the end of the day, after 10 hours of work, I could feel a really nice cystitis (Blasenentzuendung) starting and David was vomitting due to lack of strength.

The good news was that we had picked about 450 kg of tomatos each and had earned about $50 after taxes! Deducting the cost of food and camping, we ended up with about $30 each! That was well worthwhile the trouble, wasn't it? Yep, that's what we figured as well. So after considering our budget and all the money we had earned before leaving and our other options of reducing travel costs (WWOOFing, which we will explain later on), we just turned off the alarm clock and went to bed happily!

The next day found us back in our natural rhythm getting up when it was light and warm, having a good breakfast with lots of tea, and a nice long stroll along the beach. We then realized that we had not had one single day without doing anything during our travells so far, all the time we had been visiting, moving on somewhere, organizing something... so we took it easy and just did nothing! What a wonderful experience! Well, to be a little more serious, I had to take good care of my cystitis and as we had had to pay the campground for a week in advance we had a lot of time to think about how to continue our travels and how to deal with our budget. But nobody says that you can't do that lying on the beach and enjoying the sun, the breeze and the crystal clear waters... :)

So, the final decision was to keep on spending money and visit some of the most notorious islands on the coast, the Whitsunday Islands and Fraser Island, and then spend some time WWOOFing in the interior of the country. For all of you who have not heard about WWOOFing, it means Willing Workers On Organic Farms and is a worldwide network. Once you have become a member, you get all the contact details for farms in a country and you can contact them to arrange stays. The deal is: free food and accomodation for 4 hours of work every day. We figured that that was exactly what our budget needed - a time when we don't spend any money - and what our spoilt bodies needed - the luxury of a bed and good food (not just noodles with tomato sauce.... and yes, we still eat tomatos;)).

So, soon you'll find some more Island stories here and we'll also figure out if I manage to look after sheep!

Cheers!