Burpengary and Caboolture

After spending one day in Bisbane job searching we came back to where we parked the van to find it had been towed as the parking bay we had left it in had turned into a clearway (tow away zone). After this experience we came to the conclusion that Brisbane wasn't very tourist friendly or parking friendly for that matter. So we decided to job search in Brisbane for a few hours during the day and base ourselves in Burpengary which is a small town 40 km outside Brisbane. Here we stayed behind a Caltex petrol station as this was one of the free rest stops in the area.

There wasn't much to do in Burpengary which suited us as it prevented us from being tempted to spend money, as well as helping us avoid any distractions that would affect our job search. We applied for at least 200 jobs over the course of a week and a half and these were mostly farm jobs with farm jargon so the majority of the jobs we applied for we didn't have a clue about what it involved. One job we applied for in particular was a piggery position. The only reason we found out what this job involved was because the farmer actually got back to us (the only reply we got) to inform us he was only looking for 1 person. This was fortunate for us as although we didn't feel this way at the time as we were desperate for work, the job would have most likely involved walking around knee deep in pig crap and perfoming the main task of artificial insemination!

One of the job vancanies we came across on the Gumtree site, was specifically for backpackers and had various jobs ranging from strawberry/pineapple picking to cleaners. There was a catch however, as in order to gain work you had to stay in the Houstel (the company had combined a house with hostel facilities that they cleverly named houstel!). This job post seemed promising and we thought we would at least check it out and take it from there. So we drove just north of Burpengary to Caboolture to find these so called amazing houstels and we were disappointed to find a run down house in its place with a sign on the ground pointing to the office around the side. It led to the basement in which was an unwashed old man, with his belt and shirt undone, his shoes off, and holey socks on display (and it wasn't even Sunday). He was sitting at a computer, surrounded in filth and computer parts, staring at a wall and wouldn't even turn to make eye contact when we were in conversation, so at first we were unsure if he was talking to us.

He claimed he could get us work through his network as he had a list of contact numbers he would give us once we had paid him a weeks rent up front to stay in this run down house with 4 other backpackers. He advised us that it generally takes 4 to 5 days to get us work however we were a bit sceptical after seeing the state of the place and told him we would think about it and get back to him. Just as we were leaving we seen a backpacker who was living in the houstel walking down the street so we pulled in and asked him how long he had stayed there and if he had got work through this. It turned out he had been given some work strawberry picking but the season had finished and he had been out of work for 2 weeks and was still paying rent! Therefore we decided that we weren't that desperate for work that we would throw away money on rent in the hope a job turns up.

The best thing about Caboolture was the chippy that we found and managed to get ourselves a couple of rolls and chips! This was a struggle at first though as the chippy was run by Chinese people and when ordering they couldn't understand why we wanted a roll with our chips and then we were completely thrown by the fact that in Australia you have different types of salt! Apparently you can get your standard salt as well as chicken salt. One of the cool things about this chippy was the fact that they sold deep fried mars bars! I thought that this was a Scottish only dish but apparently you can get it here too and they have went one further as you could also order deep fried ice-cream!