Station Work!

I've spent the last week looking into where I was going to travel next, revolving mostly around where the best casual jobs were. I had heard of a fruit picking industry in many places, but without my own transportation it seemed I was at risk of spending more money than I could earn in most places. I then started considering going to a 'jackaroo' school.. a 5-11 day course teaching travelers all the basic functions of a station worker and then helping them to find employment. Had done some research on these even before I came over to Oz, so I was pretty close to signing up for one up in Queensland that I could attend after I finished working at the easter show here in Sydney.

But..

Right as I'm in the middle of doing some more job searches yesterday, I get an email from the lady I sat next to on the plane from Honolulu to Guam, and then on to Cairns. She owns and runs a general store in a small town WAY OUT in the bush (about 3 hours inland from Cairns!) As the general store owner, she knows people from all around, and had promised to keep her eye open for any station work openings. Well yesterday she sent me a great one, a huge cattle station about 2 hours west of her had an opening for a stationhand! The people are supposed to be pretty nice, the pay is well, and my room and all meals are included. This is exactly the thing I came here looking for. The hard work and isolation will be pretty demanding at times I'm sure, and am I prepared competely for it?.. probably not.. but that's the point. I wanted something completly out of my comfort zone.. something very different. And this sounds exactly like what I was looking for. It's funny, but the quickest way of getting there will be to take a ride as a passenger of the MAIL PLANE that goes there weekly.

Being such a massive ranch I'm sure I'll be doing plenty of fence work, but there will be plenty of opprotunities to ride. From May - July the station will bring in 12 more men to help muster the cattle, so I'm looking forward to getting my hands dirty with that as well. Mostly I have no idea what to expect, but I know enough to have jumped on the opprotunity and plan on starting in about 2 weeks.

Being as they want me to work for quite a long time (till around close to the time I'm currently scheduled to fly back to the States), I've decided to make sure and visit my Aunts before I go up to the bush. Last night I called my Aunt in Adelaide and booked a ticket over the phone Syd-Adelaide.. this morning, actually arrived here at 8am (12 hours after calling her). Next week I'll try to get up to the Gold Coast/ Brisbane area to see my other Aunt for about a week before finally going out to the station.

I had originally hoped to see my other cousins in Melbourne and some more of the country.. but this is one of the consequences of having a no plans trip. I knew I could never do EVERYTHING in 9-10 months, but wanted to take the best opprotunities I could as they came up. Wish me luck... and keep in mind, if i end up needing a doctor, they'll have to fly one in. Just like the weekly mail.