Warwick - Farm Work!

We finally got a job through an agency called Ready Work Force that actually helps backpackers with employment. We called them on the friday and they called us with a job on the Monday. It was to work for a company called Australian Fresh Salad on a Farm out in Warwick (160km SW of Brisbane) Here we worked for 3 weeks on the Miandetta farm handing cutting various lettuces in the morning then spent the rest of the day weeding. The first few weeks here were ok. The people seemed ok even though they were German. However the last week we worked here a German couple who had worked at the farm for 3 months were all about the work and started bitching at us saying we weren't weeding fast enough and missing weeds. They were like mini Hitlers and liked to start 15 minutes early and work 15 minutes late each day unpaid so I think we upset them by waiting in the van until 6am to start and leaving on time, as well as actually taking our full lunch break!

Thankfully we were then tranferred to another farm in Wheatvale, just outside Warwick. It was still the same company and same job but it was a much smaller and laid back farm. Here there were no Germans and we worked with an alchoholic Ozzie called Russel and 2 English girls called Amy and Becka. this was more like a holiday camp as all we had to do was spend 8 hours per day weeding with no hand cutting and there was plenty of skiving, especially when the 2 girls were around getting stoned. We got on well with them and the first week here we ended up camping on the farm, resulting in a bbq night with a massive fire. After a week we were caught and were told to stop by the owner of the farm. The manager of this farm was also not around too much so we took the opportunity to jump on the tractor to pose for a few pics:









































After being kicked off the farm we went to stay at the nearest campsite at a place called Leslie Dam. It turned out that it was an unmanned campsite so we were able to stay there for 3 weeks and use the showers for free as we accidentaly forgot to pay them. It was an honesty system and it turns out that we are not honest.

The 2 English girls managed to get away with this for 2 months and 1 day the owner did come around and see them. However when he came over to speak to them, instead of getting kicked out they were invited to stay in a portacabin type thing for free as long as they picked up the rubbish. This was great for us too as it was powered and had a TV, fridge/freezer and all your proper cooking facilities and we practically moved in, only going back to the van to sleep.

The Dam was really cool to stay at as at night time and the mornings we were surrounded by wildlife. The first morning we woke up and looked out the window and realised we were in a field full of cows! then we looked out the other window and seen loads of kangaroos. The dam was also home to rabbits, hares, foxes, millions of frogs, turtles, porcupines and these cool possums:


















We had been warned to watch out for snakes on the farm and in our first week one of the local guys that worked there said that he had seen a brown snake and a red-bellied black snake which are two of the most poisonous snakes around. Fortunately we didn't see any jumping out the lettuce, however on leaving the farm one day we did see a brown snake which we managed to grab 1 picture of before it ran away into the bushes:

In warwick there is not a lot to do as it is a tiny little town with a population of around 12,000. Thankfully were able to get a library membership which we were able to borrow loads of DVD's that has kept us going. In addition we enjoyed "cheap Tuesday" where we could get a pizza for £2.50 and the cinema also only cost £2.50 per person! In addition there were plenty of basketball courts so we bought a ball to mess about with. Another way we found to keep fit was the outdoor gym that was provided for free by the council which Gemma had some fun on.

























As we worked 6 days per week, only getting a Saturday off we didn't have too much spare time. However on one of the Saturdays we decided to check out a drag racing event that was held in warwick. This was quite cool as we hadn't been to anything like this before although we could only go on the Saturday so we didn't see the finals that were held on the Sunday.


















Warwick is apparently famous for being a great rodeo destination and we were lucky enough to be in town for the event. This is supposedly the biggest rodeo in Australia and we went along to see it. This was another cool day of seeing lots of guys and woman being thrown about by horses and bulls. It looked like fun up until we seen one of the women being knocked unconcious when she fell off her bull. Despite this we were still considering entering when we heard that the prize money for winning one event was $8000.

























There is some nice scenery around the area outside Warwick in an area known as Main Range National Park. This covers hundreds of kilometres and we went to see one section that had the Queen Mary Falls. It was good to go there and start to do some touristy sight seeing again as it had been a while. These falls were quite nice and you could go for a walk around the area which took you from the top down to the bottom and back up again.



































On our second last weekend we were that desperate to get out of Warwick we took a drive to Brisbane for the night as a sneak preview to what was around the corner. It was amazing to get away from the swarms of flies that harrass you constantly all day when in inland Australia. We had hoped to take in a game of Ozzie Rules Football but it was the close season. Instead we decided to buy some theme park tickets which Gemma can't wait to get to next week!