Journey to Bundaberg Part 1

Bundaberg, situated approximately 500km from Brisbane, is famous for its sugar plantation, beautiful Bargara Beach and its ‘attractive’ sweat-flowing working opportunities overcrowded largely by backpackers. The conclusion remarks I could sum up about my experience there last year were ‘horrible’, ‘sucks’, ‘shit’ and ‘I’ll never ever go back to this sh*t place again, never!’. Very simple reasons actually: bad job, bad money, bad accommodation, bad weather and bad season to work, except one thing good, good people.

One of my plans before leaving back to Malaysia this year was to work part-time. Finding a job in Brisbane at that time (3 weeks before leaving) does not appeal me for its low wages of working part-time. The next plan was to go AMH (Australian Meat Holdings) in Toowomba, the exact same place I worked early this year after Bundy. This job promised easy job and good money. Furthermore, it’s just 125km from Brisbane. Taking a bus would only take 1½ hour to arrive. But, I ended up going Bundy surprisingly. Actually, very.

As much as my heart desire to earn more money and crave for easy jobs at beef factory, there seemed to be little or no drive that pushed me forward towards attending that plan. Maybe it’s because of my ‘busy’ness in completing my final few assignments that hindered me from thinking too much about the plan of fruitpicking. This journey to Bundy was not planned until two day before my departure. In my heart and mind, I’ve been telling myself not to step a foot on that piece of land again.

Yet, instead of whinging about what I might be working in the next few weeks, I actually prayed to Jesus to help me make a wise decision. I prayed simple prayers, asking Him to show me where He wants to lead me. And, maybe because of my lazy attitude that God knows me, I decided to go Bundy just because Miza, my friend made an effort to call Workers and Divers, the place we’d be working. ‘Good’ news came pretty quickly and hastily when she told me ‘we are leaving this Saturday’. I had mix feelings about working there. Many unpleasant experiences had led me to think that the same thing would be happening again. But the fact that I have two friends going there as well consoled the many worries inside me, thinking that even if I would have bad jobs, I still have my friends around.

Saturday came pretty quickly because not only did I have to pack my bags for this trip, I still had Jo’s assignment which I had not completed and final packing back for Malaysia. I remembered many uncertainties that I thought we might have later, especially for a first-timer backpacker, Ili, who is also sweet and gentle in which I believed was not able to go through that 3 weeks. In the train leaving north, Miza and I shared our stories of fruitpicking. As you’ve already known, mine was awful but Miza’s was awesome. She had plenty of interesting stories to share. In the end, we told ourselves to keep our fingers crossed for this coming three weeks in an optimistic hope that we would get a good job, good money and good experience before leaving back for good.

(Front: Miza, Ili
Second row: Sarah, Nasrul,
Third row: Leila)

The train finally touched down at 3 something in the afternoon. It was a little cloudy and the train station and the city brought back every single memory that I had there last year. Yet I dared not think too much or indulged myself into thinking about the past experience. Already in my heart, I have surrendered myself up to God, believing that He will not let me down if I had faith in Him, to believe that He has a greater plan for me this time in Bundy. Well, John, one of the two managers of Workers and Divers Hostel arrived with the distinctive same old van I saw last year.
It filled us with great hospitality and comfort when he told us that plenty of farms are opened now, and that it is a season for many different types of vegetables and fruits, e.g. corns, sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, rockmelons, watermelons, capsicums and chillies. Yet, we realized that just as many farms that they have offered, there are many backpackers there too, approximately 90 of them. It turned out that having the three of us to work together on the farm would be something very difficult to arrange, and since job arrangement was done by them, we did not know what jobs we might be getting every single day. Fingers crossed, once again.