The black hole of mushroom picking!

The Deal:

$4.50 per 4.5kg A Grade Mushrooms

$2.25 per 4.5kg B Grade Mushrooms (even if you thought they were A Grade but they didn't)

Sat: 7am - 12pm (Dom 4 boxes all B Grade)

5 hours work = $9 

(really...no)

Sun: 7am - 10:30pm (Dom 11 boxes all B Grade)

15 1/2 hours work = $24.75 

(yes seriously...)

Tue: 7am - 8pm 

(Dom 11 boxes HOPEFULLY all A Grade but let's say half and half)

(Leonie 10 boxes all A Grade)

13 hours work = Dom $38.25 Leonie $45)

(What!! Surely that can't be right)

Wed: 7am - 1:45am :/

(Dom 26 boxes let's assume by day 4 that 3/4 were A Grade)

(Leonie 23 boxes all A Grade)

18 3/4 hours work = Dom $101.25 Leonie $103.50

(this is f#@kin criminal)

In summary Dom 52hours 15mins picking mushrooms for $173.25

In summary Leonie 31hours 45mins picking mushrooms for $148.50

We felt good about this job. We hassled them and hassled them for work because we knew that they picked all year round (as these mushrooms are indoors) and they advertised that you could make up to $1000 per week (after plenty of practice of course). Sounding great we signed the minimum 6 months working agreement (as we had dreams of doing this all through Autumn and Winter for next six months), and got started with a revitalised energy. 

Pretty much after the first day (Dom would say couple of hours)...when we looked at how perfect they needed to be (right size, perfect circle, polished shiny clean), and did the math in our heads of how many we could realistically pick per hour and how much we could make, we realised that something wasn't quite right here.

After day 4 for Dom and day 2 for Leonie when we started at 7am and finished after 1 'o' clock in the morning, we said 'hell no this won't do'. We called it quits right there and gladly (and with great satisfaction we might add) slept in that very next morning.

About this experience we have just one thing to point out. If the pickers are the last stage of the quality product, then shouldn't the company actually make some effort to take care of those picker staff? In terms of say, well I don't know...maybe a bloody hourly wage!!! Sadly we felt that plenty of the foreigners working there were easy targets and easily scammed, not us.

We like to call this experience the black hole. Meaning we put it there and never want to experience or think about it again. We have a new found respect for how fucking stupidly hard it is to pick mushrooms. Hats off to those that want to do it, but we'll take ours grilled with bacon and eggs for breakfast.

So that explains the dissatisfaction on Leonie's face whilst wearing the not so 

majestic mushroom apron.

So we were jobless once again...and once again the chance for a more promising job surfaced that very same day. We headed off into the sunset back in the direction towards Batemans Bay once again (more of that to come later)

We slept at an incredibly beautiful rest stop on the federal highway between Goulburn and and Canberra overlooking the beautiful scene at Lake George. Did you know that there is a fully equipped rest stop basically every 5km along this part of the freeway? Very impressive and thoughtful of the government to actually use our tax dollars for something useful. If only they did something like that in Sydney on the freeways.

Here Leonie is making our a beautiful porridge for breakfast the next day. Organic oats, coconut oil, local fresh raspberries, and organic natural yoghurt and honey. Wowwwww! A chilly morning breakfast to die for!

Salivate.....

Can't you just taste it??

The windmills of the 'Capital Wind Farm' on the mountains behind Lake George. They look eerie and a bit sci-fi. This 140.7 megawatt wind farm was built to offset the power used at Kurnell Desalination Plant. It's been in operation since 2009, but we aren't quite sure how it all works. Hey....anything environmentally sensible can hopefully only be good though no?

We made our way to the little town called Bungendore (close to where our promising new work is...Sshhhhhhhhh...more about that later). Apparently heaps of Canberra and Queanbeyan people have had enough of living in the very exciting where heaps happens ACT, so decided to move here to Bungendore. The result means rental property prices are those you would normally see in inner city suburbs of Sydney. A bit of a shock it was for us.

As we had a meeting with our potential new employer on Sunday, we decided to cruise into Queanbeyan on Friday afternoon to spend a day there and look around and relax a bit.

Sitting there in the parking lot of the information centre on the main street of Queanbeyan, very uninspired about being back in dense suburbia, we were both discussing how much we needed showers. 

Looking up from our front window in that instance, we both spotted this above sign! We couldn't believe it! What a piece of luck! Queanbeyan had given us the best prezzie we could have received in a long time).

John Gale? Never heard of him. Apparently one of the 12 important people that created Canberra as the all important capital of Australia. Leonie was thanking him for it...

This photo (as you've already seen once before) is the face of an unhappy worker. Leonie was modelling the apron for you all right before we sent it back to the mushroom headquarters, in the post.

Enjoying a quiet night in (the van). Leonie having her avocado dinner before bed.

We decided that we deserved to have a bit of a splurge before our possible new employment (did we mention anything about that?) starts on Monday...and on an impulse we got ourselves a motel with foxtel, buffet breakfast, a bath, late check out....and we loved every bit of it.

Here you can see a VERY content Leonie spreading her wings on the big queen sized bed. We are happy to report that it was the first time we have slept in a bed since mid Jan and we didn't hit our head once getting up :)

Who abandons their cat at a caravan park?

So we left Batemans Bay with Leonie on crutches and headed back inland to Yass, to take up jobs at Majestic Mushrooms in Murrumbateman (Wine Country - 20mins from Yass). We hassled and hassled the owner for a job as it sounded so great and promising financially. As you can see above, it was a lovely drive back.

Finally got there very late at night. Dom was a bit disappointed with how small and how much of a lack of interesting cafes and shops there were. Once again we stumbled in there with very little money....hoping the new job would bring good working conditions, plenty of work and decent $$

If any of you saw Leonie's post on her Facebook, you would have seen the story that some a$#%holes abandoned their beautiful cat at the caravan park that we were staying at. We heard him meowing and whimpering around our tent one night, and then tried to find his parents. We came to the conclusion that he was so beautiful and well looked after...who would have ever left a little guy like that behind.

We kept him around us for a day and a half and then eventually as we couldn't find his owners, we took him to the local vet to check for a micro chip and locate his owners.

Turns out later in the day that the vet got hold of the owners, and their story is that the cat (his name is 'Roger') got away when they stopped over the night, and they spent hours trying to find him and couldn't, so they left the next day without him. They also mentioned that they were happy to have him re homed. We heard from a young boy at the caravan park that they deliberately left him behind along with his cage. We couldn't believe it! We would never ever consider doing something like that to our little guy 'Happy'. Anyway all we can say is "Karma can be a bitch".

We were stressing over finding him a home, as the vet told us that they could only keep him in possession until 5pm that day and then if no one claimed him, then he would have to just go to the streets. Apparently this is how it works in Yass, as the council don't have a plan for stray cats so they are legally allowed to go to the streets. A bit ridiculous isn't it?

LUCKILY....when we showed up to collect him and were at our wits end about what to do, one of the vet nurses asked if she could keep him. We were amazed, surprised, overwhelmed, and just so glad that someone would give him a brand new home with all the love any animal deserves. Kudos to Leonie who worked so hard to find Roger a home. We are sure he is happy now and enjoying his new life with GOOD parents :)

Leonie finally getting rid of the crutches from that small accident back in Batemans Bay. She's all nearly healed, and the foot is repairing very quickly. She decided that someone who visits Yass St Vinnies might get more use out of the them.

Turns out that Majestic Mushrooms wasn't quite as majestic as it seemed...but that's for another blog post :)

An unexpected visit to The Hospital

Did we say there would be more challenges on this trip? 

Yup, this one is a beauty!!!

We had only been on the coast for 24hrs and Leonie slipped and fell on the rocks at a picnic spot in Batemans Bay, and ripped her WHOLE right heel off! WHAT??? Yes you read correctly, read the above again.

Below is Leonie having her dinner, moments before the incident. So peaceful life was at that time... Thinking of going for a run and a swim in the morning. Read on to see what follows...

OUCH (NO F***ING WAY)!!! All the nerves in her heel were exposed and only the soft white  flesh was exposed, no blood and no pain until about 30-60seconds later and then the pain and blood followed! Oh boy!! Luckily Tanya (Leonie’s bestie) had provided us with a first aid kit for such disasters. We wrapped the wound and decided to rush Leonie off to the hospital to clean it up and get it seriously looked over. Given the amount of flesh that had been ripped from her heel...this needed to be seen by a doctor. We WERE going to check into our first hotel (on this trip) for the night, but a hospital bed would have to do.

So...with Leonie laying in the van in intense agony and tears, Dom ran across the road to a lady sitting on her porch to get the directions for the hospital. Off we went!!

Got to the hospital and because it was a Saturday night it had quite a few patients already in there; Little girl with head injuries, drunk bikies, car accident victims, etc...we had to wait a while until a nurse could look at Leonie's foot.

About an hour later we were seen by a lovely nurse, Berni her name was...

She undid the dressing that we put on, and said that she would have to clean the wound out as there was a lot of dirt in there. This meant that she had to squirt saline solution into Leonie's exposed nerves and clean up the mess.

Leonie’s words:

'Oh F**K!!! Oh no you don’t...' 

She already knew that her nerve endings were hanging out and to have someone messing around there was going to cause more pain. Leonie was ready to punch anyone out if they even got close to it. (she's like a wounded tiger, ready to lash out if anyone comes close when she's in pain!).

But then Nurse Berni said she would put Leonie on the 'gas' while she cleaned it out. Leonie had never had the 'gas' before and because it's been affectionately know as ‘laughing gas’, how bad could it be?

It started off as being o.k. and a novelty, but in reality...she hated the gas! It slowed everything down and even though Leonie couldn’t feel the pain, she also couldn’t make sense of anything around her. At one stage she thought she could hear dance music whilst the cleanse was going on. Dom and Leonie even had a couple of laughing fits together. 
However, the worst thing, is that the gas wears off in 20secs...so Leonie was told to keep sucking on the gas and SHE HATED it! But if she stopped sucking on the gas all the pain would come back and she could feel every little nerve ending in her heel being rubbed up and tormented by cotton buds and saline solution. 

What could we do? Poor Dom had to hold Leonie down (forcefully), because there were moments where she just wanted to get up and walk away.....oh...and punch out Nurse Berni!

At the end of the 6 hours at the hospital we thanked Berni, and Leonie left on crutches. She is on them now until the new skin on her heel grows back.

When we walked out of the hospital, it was 11pm, and we had no where to go. Leonie was traumatised and it was too late to get a hotel or motel and all the camp sights were closed. Our only option was to sleep in the van (thank god it is fitted out for sleeping in) in a car parking lot! 

Leonie's foot the next morning.

So a lot of our plans had been taken over by our hospital visit and there was only one thing to do..Go to the Beach!! Yippppppeeeeeee!!!

Pic above is the NSW National Parks Licence we got so we could enter to beautiful camp sites and coastal beaches. Pic below is Dom putting together his cray net, unfortunately his cray net was stolen... we presume that he had crays in there and they cut the rope....Dom was REALLY PISSED!!!

Below Leonie capturing her surroundings with her camera...on Depot Beach.

Time to learn how to play the guitar as walking or running was out of the question :(

Getting some vitamin D and a bandage tan line...lol!!

Our new neighbours at Depot Beach Camp Site....love these guys!

Below would be the cheekiest little kangaroo there ever was! At breakfast time he just strolled up and started poking his nose around to see what he could eat... we gave him nothing. Our diet isn't his.

Dom and Kanga having a debate over the food.

In the end Leonie offered him some grass and he wouldn't take it, he only wanted the bread and anything else he could get his nose into...haha!!

Leonie getting right into nature...lighting the camp fire (our first use of our funky camp fire kit).

Giddy Goanna (the next morning)...they're pretty bold and walk around like they 

own the place...love it! One even charged Leonie when she was in his way taking its photo!

Best mushrooms we have ever eaten!!! BBQ baby!! BBQ!!!

And the cheeky Rosella's who thought they could just invite themselves to breakfast and 

take off with our blueberries.

Its been 3 days since the hospital and we're surprised and happy to see that Leonie's heel is healing faster than we thought. In just 4 days new skin is growing! And Leonie has ditched the crutches and is hobbling around slowly.

Next stop....looking for work. 

Meltdown!!

It's inevitable that we would have melt downs on our trip around Australia, considering we are glued to each other, day in and day out... Its hard and beautiful at the same time.

We want to keep this blog honest and open at all times, and are happy for comments below to encourage us along this journey. Or you can share experiences that might inspire us through the tough times too.

We’ve had a few melt downs on this trip...starting in Hay NSW when Dom got himself a speeding fine, Oops, 68km in a 50km zone... not happy! That cost us a days work picking onions in 47 deg heat. Yikes!!! OK time to be positive and put that behind us! That was Melt-down 1.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next BIG melt-down happened in Orange only 4 days ago now, when we were offered 
4-6 weeks work on a vineyard and on day 4 we were told there wasn’t anymore work due to the grapes being harvested by us sooner than expected!!! 

And on top of that it’s been raining here in Orange for the past few days!! And we have been locked up in our van watching videos for 3 days.... 

Now all that really suck’s as we had turned down another job for this one in Orange (we're not even going to bother giving this vinyard a plug) that  done us over!

So I cracked, we both cracked...just a little bit....ok i’ll be honest a lot!!! 

I just wanted to get away from Orange and be by the Ocean!!! 3 months without the Ocean is now my quota, especially in this HOT summer we have been having this year.

Yes there were tears, and yes I wanted to pack it all in...almost :)

The shot below is us watching "The Pursuit of Happyness" and our last night in Orange. It was cold and rainy! But we had some wine and a great selection of cheese and crackers... We were feeling better already!

We looked at each other and thought lets just get out of here, Batemans bay is only 5hrs drive...Wooooo Hooooo, and we left Orange just like that! (The plus to travelling on the road, is we can pack up any time and move on with no obligations.

On the way! It's as simple as that, make a decision to change the moment and let it all unfold...

And here we are on the beautiful south coast of NSW and as you can see from the series of photos that follow we are feeling and looking so much different from 24 hrs before....

Above Leonie has the whole world in her hands....

and then some asana...

more asana...

Dom loving life...ready for a big hug too ;)

Freedom at last!!! Below Leonie expressing how she feels right now on the beautiful South Coast of NSW!!!

And to really put things into perspective lets just turn our sleves up side down, heheheheh.

Pebbly Beach is below!!! We got aquainted with the forever beautiful Eastern Grey Kangaroo's and the bright colours of the friendly Rosella's and Lorketts. This clearly is heaven on earth...where humans and animals can co exist.

Below is Leonie drying her clothes after the rain, just hanging them out the car window :)

Our feet planted in Moruya about 30 mins drive south of Batemans Bay, we took the photo of our feet as a symbol of being here now and we really loved the place. We would be happy to set up home here! But we must push on around Australia and see how many of these places we find.

And for all you footy fans out there.

Dom vs Michael Weyman

'Run at me', Dom says. 

Commentator: Front on! What a tackle! Driving him back around the hips, but he's too big and Dom has to come in hard from the right side to take him down a couple of metres short of the tryline!

So we bounced back from that melt down, just one of the many lessons of this trip...we are sure there will be heaps more...