Our final day in Victoria (the state in which Melbourne is located) was spent in Mornington, a town around an hour from Melbourne CBD and where Scott had emigrated with his family. Nicola and I caught a tram to Flinders Street Station (the main train station in Melbourne, opposite Federation Square) and bought train tickets to Frankston (or "Afrankistan" as Scott informed us). Originally, from the posters dotted around Flinders St Station we calculated the train tickets to cost $6 for the pair of us, not too bad. However, we were informed that we could not buy tickets to Frankston like we could buy a ticket on a tram, we could only purchase a "Myki" card (similar to an Oyster card) and load credit onto that for the journey...so the price rocketed up to $34 for the pair of us; quite a price hike from $6. We explained that we did not want a Myki card as we were leaving the following day but the rather surly and unhelpful train guard (some things never change) told us we had no choice but to buy a card each...we weren't overly impressed and left feeling that Melbourne was a rather tourist unfriendly city.
Anyways, on the way down to Frankston, Nicola and I were considering our options for farm work. Oli had just given us a heads up via text that there was work in Cairns picking bananas for $19 per hour. Nicola and I did the math (roughly without the use of a calculator) that, based on the minimum price of accommodation per night we had been paying ($70 for a private room), it would cost us $490 per week accommodation alone. Add to that what we had been spending on food per day, approx $50 (and that was eating cheaply) and then other factors such as tax (30% for a traveller on working holiday visa) and getting to and from the farms (say $50 - $100 per week) we would have to make around $1000 per week to make any sort of profit and maybe even to just break even. Given that the work was not guaranteed, and especially not guaranteed for the both of us, or that both of us could get a job on the same farm/within the same area, we started to think fruit picking may not be the best option. We didn't want to have to work 30 hour weeks and make next to nothing at the end of the month, or even make a loss!
In light of the above, I had been saying to Nicola the best bet we had would be to get to a place and check for work in hostels etc as the internet may not be up to date (we had been checking gum tree and various other sites and they all returned responses to the effect that the advert/work had been filled when you selected the email enquiry button). We had also been struggling to find work via sites such as SEEK or the Australian Govt. site because all the adverts required "experienced" personnel to work on the farms, which Nicola and I certainly were not. Demonstrating a consistent ability to prove me wrong Nicola had emailed an enquiry to a dairy farm that requested a couple to work on their farm a day or two before...we had a response on our way to Frankston saying that the positions were available if we wanted to take them.
The catch was that the positions were voluntary, but we would receive free accommodation and meals (and a nice bonus use of a car!) and would only have to work a few hours in morning and evening. Before we left for Australia, Nicola and I had dismissed working for nothing or going down the WWOOFing route (Willing Workers On Organic Farms - volunteering through a national network of farms in exchange for free accommodation and food). However, Nicola and I started weighing up the pros and cons and also calculating how much we could save. Accommodation and food were our two main outgoings (aside from flights but they had all been paid for now), after food and lodging our outgoings were almost nil. We realised that, if we could eliminate accommodation and food from our outgoings, over a 3 month period (period of farm work required in order to extend our visas to two years) we could save ourselves around $12,000! A massive sum of money. And for only a few hours work per day as opposed to 12 hour days on decent money but incurring huge outgoings. We thought our best bet would be to go for the dairy farm option and so we sent off an email accepting the offer to work - the lady who owned the farm also said, if things worked out we could do the whole 3 months on their farm, thereby giving us a golden ticket to extend our visa. It really was an offer we could not turn down.
We arrived in Frankston after around an hour 20 and met Scott in the car park behind the station. It didn't immediately appear to be a rough area but we spotted a few mullet-ed teens and guessed maybe that was the sign of trouble. As we chatted in the car on the way to Mornington, which was approx 20 minutes from Frankston, Scott outlined some Aussie lingo for us:
Anyways, on the way down to Frankston, Nicola and I were considering our options for farm work. Oli had just given us a heads up via text that there was work in Cairns picking bananas for $19 per hour. Nicola and I did the math (roughly without the use of a calculator) that, based on the minimum price of accommodation per night we had been paying ($70 for a private room), it would cost us $490 per week accommodation alone. Add to that what we had been spending on food per day, approx $50 (and that was eating cheaply) and then other factors such as tax (30% for a traveller on working holiday visa) and getting to and from the farms (say $50 - $100 per week) we would have to make around $1000 per week to make any sort of profit and maybe even to just break even. Given that the work was not guaranteed, and especially not guaranteed for the both of us, or that both of us could get a job on the same farm/within the same area, we started to think fruit picking may not be the best option. We didn't want to have to work 30 hour weeks and make next to nothing at the end of the month, or even make a loss!
In light of the above, I had been saying to Nicola the best bet we had would be to get to a place and check for work in hostels etc as the internet may not be up to date (we had been checking gum tree and various other sites and they all returned responses to the effect that the advert/work had been filled when you selected the email enquiry button). We had also been struggling to find work via sites such as SEEK or the Australian Govt. site because all the adverts required "experienced" personnel to work on the farms, which Nicola and I certainly were not. Demonstrating a consistent ability to prove me wrong Nicola had emailed an enquiry to a dairy farm that requested a couple to work on their farm a day or two before...we had a response on our way to Frankston saying that the positions were available if we wanted to take them.
The catch was that the positions were voluntary, but we would receive free accommodation and meals (and a nice bonus use of a car!) and would only have to work a few hours in morning and evening. Before we left for Australia, Nicola and I had dismissed working for nothing or going down the WWOOFing route (Willing Workers On Organic Farms - volunteering through a national network of farms in exchange for free accommodation and food). However, Nicola and I started weighing up the pros and cons and also calculating how much we could save. Accommodation and food were our two main outgoings (aside from flights but they had all been paid for now), after food and lodging our outgoings were almost nil. We realised that, if we could eliminate accommodation and food from our outgoings, over a 3 month period (period of farm work required in order to extend our visas to two years) we could save ourselves around $12,000! A massive sum of money. And for only a few hours work per day as opposed to 12 hour days on decent money but incurring huge outgoings. We thought our best bet would be to go for the dairy farm option and so we sent off an email accepting the offer to work - the lady who owned the farm also said, if things worked out we could do the whole 3 months on their farm, thereby giving us a golden ticket to extend our visa. It really was an offer we could not turn down.
We arrived in Frankston after around an hour 20 and met Scott in the car park behind the station. It didn't immediately appear to be a rough area but we spotted a few mullet-ed teens and guessed maybe that was the sign of trouble. As we chatted in the car on the way to Mornington, which was approx 20 minutes from Frankston, Scott outlined some Aussie lingo for us:
- A "dropkick" is a down and out
- A "bogan" is a chav
- A "ranga" (pronounced rang-uh) is a ginger
As we drove closer to Mornington it became apparent that the area was pretty affluent, there were lots of large houses and Scott drove us down one street that was particularly impressive - some houses had a tennis court! The weather was lovely and it was nice being driven around the area. We pulled up outside Scott's house, which was lovely and spacious, and he gave us a tour of his house before we headed into Mornington to try a "Palmer" - an Aussie take on a hunter's chicken - at the Grand Hotel, where Scott worked. The Palmer was nice, it went something like this: a chicken schnitzel with a slice of ham and cheese on top, but instead of BBQ sauce there was a Napoli sauce. I'd recommend one if you get the chance to try.
After a brief tour of Main Street, we jumped back into Scott's car (a sporty little black Alfa Romeo) for a tour around the Mornington Peninsular area. We stopped off at a beach near to Scott's house then drove up to an area in the hills called Arthur's Seat, which provided a lovely view of the area below.
We then had to stop at the side of the road to take some more photos as the trees opened up at a place called Murray's Lookout and the view was pretty spectacular.
We made our way back to Scott's house where we had a cup of tea and a lamington (a sponge finger coated in chocolate and coconut - lovely) before Nicola and I had to say our goodbyes and were dropped back off at Frankston station to begin our journey back to St Kilda for our last night at the hostel...Brisbane in the morning! It was a lovely day to finish off our time in Victoria and it was nice to have a chance to see where Scott had settled. The last two days had improved our opinion of Melbourne and the surrounding area and we resolved to come back at a later time - mainly in order to go to Philip Island to see the penguin parade and hire a camper van to travel across the Great Ocean Road.
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