Bright red: the colour of money

Hello once again:

I've got to make this very quick but I thought I should give an update. It seems I will not, repeat N-O-T, become a jackaroo after all. Bit of a long story, but I got a bad feeling when the woman from the backpacker job centre called and said she couldn't get a hold of the ranch but she'd keep trying. Then she said if this doesn't work out she could give me a 2-week gig at a national park as a gardener. Sounds all right . . . but 2 weeks?

So I went out and found my own dang job right here in Darwin. It's at a concrete block factory very near where I'm staying. I did my first day yesterday (1o hours!). It's hot, dusty and a bit boring but both the pay and hours are great, as in 50-60 hours per week. A large part of my day yesterday consisted of manning one of the cement mixers. Every 3-10 minutes a massive vat on a pulley comes over and dumps a whole lotta sand in the mixer. This was my cue to dump a 12 kilogram bag of bright red iron oxide pigment into the mixer. As a result, we get lovely bright-red bricks. The things you never thought about when you go to your local garden centre for pavers, eh?

By the time I got home I was ABSOLUTELY covered in bright red pigment myself. My face, arms, legs, clothes and even eyelids were a scary red colour. It took a lot of scrubbing to get off. I took a few pictures (not of me scrubbing but of when I got home), which I'll have to post as soon as possible.

So, I'm staying in Darwin for the month near to email, phones, computers, pubs, comfortable beds and all that good stuff.

Phew.

Survival of the fittest

I arrived in Darwin on Monday night after a three-hour flight from Cairns. As capital of Australia's Northern Territory, Darwin is the country's northernmost city. Keep in mind that north=hot and south=cold in the southern hemisphere. In other words, Darwin is a ridgy-didge stinker of a place. (That's Aussie for right effin' hot).

For example, it was +27 when I got out of bed this morning about 8 o'clock. And the humidity was somewhere around 92%. It's not so bad when you're still indoors with fans all around you and the choice of air-conditioning. It's just that as soon as you step outside you begin to sweat. Or at least I do anyway. "It's like having your own personal sauna," is how a woman I met yesterday put it.

I spent the first couple of days pounding the pavement and getting a feel for the city, as well as looking for a job. Yes, it's sadly that time again: time for Tyler to join the real world and work. My five weeks of jet-setting, sailing, scuba diving, four-wheel-driving and otherwise living as a hedonist have done a number on the bank account. Now it's time to recharge the funds, as it were.

Darwin is a pretty city. Lush flowers and gardens are practically everywhere. The water in the harbour has a beautiful teal colour to it, much like it does at the Great Barrier Reef. The city's architecture is also remarkable, for two main reasons. Number one: many of the buildings are bright and colourful with a "tropical" feel. This is a city that's not afraid to take a few risks when it comes to design. Take the parliament building, for example. Some critics have apparently dubbed it "the wedding cake." But I think it's beautiful. It's where the tropics meet British colonialism meet institutional poise. Or at least that's my take on things.

The second reason why Darwin's architecture impresses: very, very little of it dates before 1975. There is a fairly simple reason for this. On Christmas Eve 1974, a terrible cyclone gathered strength off the shores of Darwin. Then in the wee hours of Christmas Day, Cyclone Tracy hit ground and effectively destroyed Darwin. Something like 11,000 buildings were completely wiped out and 66 people killed. There are only a few buildings which survived, most of them of the stone and brick variety (which makes one question some of our "modern" building techniques, doesn't it?).

The result of this is that Darwin feels like a very young city when it is, in fact, well over 100 years old.

As for jobs: I was a bit worried when the first few places I called told me either that the position had already been filled or that they wanted to hire someone who lives permanently in Darwin (and not a backpacker who will surely run away to Sydney in a month's time . . . as I fully intend to do).

Then I found the Backpacker Job Centre in the heart of town. I was a bit skeptical about the centre, as we've all heard horror stories about employment centres that don't actually find people jobs but just take their money. Well, such was not the case this time.

Within 15 minutes of arriving and handing in my application, I was back out the door with a job. It wasn't quite what I had pictured, mind you.

That's right: I am now Australia's latest cattle station hand, also known as a "jackaroo" in these parts. This means that I have to move to a farm 150 km south of Darwin very soon. I will spend most of my time out under the harsh sun doing I don't quite know what. I will work six days per week and probably be dead tired on the seventh. But, and this is the good part, I don't have to pay anything for food or lodging and I'll be taking home a very decent rate of pay on top of that (similar to what one can earn with an arts degree back in Canada).

I'm slightly scared that this will turn out to be a horrific experience but then, hey, I've probably had worse jobs. The woman at the job centre assured me that I'll have a good time (she said she worked on cattle stations herself when she first came to Australia from New Zealand). Here's hoping she's right.

Oh, and don't expect to hear from me much until I'm back in civilzation. There will be no cell phone reception at the cattle station so no text messages or sudden calls from me. I also HIGHLY doubt that there will be an Internet connection anywhere near me. So no blogging, checking emails or (gasp) Facebook for the next while. This doesn't, of course, mean that you can't keep sending me emails. That way I'll feel extra loved and important when I finally get back online.

Wish me luck!

P.S. I turn 29 in 10 days. I certainly never thought I'd be celebrating my birthday with a bunch of cows.