Well it's pretty much settled then, I'm shipping out within the next couple of weeks. The amount of responses about my desire to work I haven't had is just baffling, despite the aforementioned downward slide of my standards. There are a lot of jobs offered looking for experienced labourers (I ain't), qualified accountants (I ain't, and glad of it), outbound telesales agents (over my dead body), Travellers Who Like To Party Who Enjoy A Challenging And Rewarding Job (it doesn't say what but I bet it's awful), outbound telephone debt collection agents (maybe in my younger days I could have summoned up the mental toughness to do this, but lately I'm more mellow and benefit-of-the-doubty to my fellow humans and I feel a task like this would be unbeneficial to my psyche), and fruit pickers. Fruit picking is the classic stereotypical working holiday backpacker job and doesn't disgust me near as much as any of those others - in fact after all the couch-sittery I've been doing lately the idea of going outside and performing manual labour is quite appealing (actually I've been reading a bit of the World Book encyclopedia on my computer, and apparently some Zen Buddhists reckon manual labour helps you attain enlightenment), so when I saw an ad for fruit pickery about halfway between Sydney and Melbourne (which means it's on the way to Tasmania, which I have to get to) I rang up to enquire. The guy took my details and stuff and said that yeah, there's always work to be had there, and gave me some information on how to get there, and said it's orange picking (good, not bananas, that's alright then), so I said I hadn't decided to leave Sydney yet but I'd let him know. I did some shopping then and then went for a reasonably long walk (there's another 854 Pacific Highway! It's some physiologist or something, but apparently that's normal, because that's 854 Pacific Highway, Gordon, and we're 854 Pacific Highway, Chatswood. And there's not much chance of getting them confused because it's a bloody long way away) and when I got back the guy from the fruity place had called to leave a message for me, so I called him back the next day and he said pretty much the same stuff again, and that there's a guy in the area who's looking for people right away. I said I'd probably be out in a couple of weeks and I'd keep him posted.
So if nothing turns up in Sydney in the meantime, and that's looking very bloody likely at this stage, I'm outta here around the end of the month. Actually the only thing that's keeping me here for now really is the RPG I'm running with Dizzy, it's a great story and I don't want to leave it unfinished. According to my Lonely Planet book, now is the least fruit-picky time of year, so if I spend three months in this place getting money together, by then we'll be into the times when people usually need fruit picked, until it's time to go home again, so I shouldn't have trouble finding work like that elsewhere. Assuming the job doesn't drive me spare, of course.
So I did some research into Leeton, for that is the place's name. Although looking at a map of Australia it looks (of course) pretty close, it's eight and a half hours' ride away, at a cost of eighty bucks one-way. Now that certainly has an impact on my original plan of weekending in Sydney for the diving, and there's certainly no sea anywhere nearer. So of course that got me to thinking of something that's been in the back of my head for a while... I really miss skydiving, and have missed it ever since I last did it, when I had to stop due to lack of money and ability to access the dropzone. I looked into that a bit, and there's a type of progression course called Accelerated Freefall. The way I was learning back in the day was working up from the bottom - a few static-line jumps, a few pretend rip-cord pulls while still on the static line, a three-second freefall, a five-second freefall, seven, ten, twelve etc. (well twelve is as far as I got), but in AFF you're jumping from around 13,500 feet from the start, doing a 40-second freefall with two instructors holding onto you. Then you start doing maneuvers on your next jumps, and stuff like that. Cool! Once the initial day of training is out of the way, each subsequent jump is less than going to Sydney and back and diving, and it's building toward a license. Now obviously it'd be much, much cheaper to do nothing. But I so miss skydiving... but I need money... with a bit of luck there won't be a dropzone nearby so the decision will be made for me.
Upon trying the tent for size last week we concluded that it is indeed too small for three (also it was too short for my Adonis-like form) so I bowed out from the camping trip and let Dizzy and Britta go off by themselves, free to walk at their own glacial pace without having to stop every few minutes to take this GREAT photo idea we just came up with! Okay Dizzy, you turn upside down and I'll grab your ankle, and it'll look like I'm holding you over the cliff like in Commando! Ready Britta? Britta? Come on, take the shot, my arm's starting to hurt... So anyway I rented out a bunch of videos (Little Shop of Horrors, Waterworld, Naked Lunch, Zulu, Appleseed and Wheels on Meals) and watched them. And I went for a walk, a pretty random wander to see what's there when you go downhill from our building (quiet small streets with houses surrounded by bush, I bet it's really expensive actually, and there was a park somewhere that I wouldn't be able to find again, that was a stream valley that was fenced off but you could walk through and it was nice).
We spent this evening playing Monopol (Det beromda affarsspelet.) and reading out the placenames and Chans and Allmanning cards in funny accents. I think I'm probably winning, but Dizzy made quite a few Kroner when he landed on Fri Parkering recently... the battle will continue tomorrow.