← PreviousFreedom and minimalism in Australia: a backpacking adventure without limitsSome things seem obvious in hindsight. You think back on them and can't understand why they didn't cross your mind sooner. In that vein, it was completely obvious that we'd suffer our first disillusionment in Brisbane. We'd just spent our first three months in Australia perfectly. Not a single hitch had come our way. We'd met a wonderful group of friends and were immersing ourselves in a new culture. Everything had really gone to plan, and the road trip between Sydney and Brisbane kept filling our memory boxes. It seemed obvious Brisbane wouldn't live up to our expectations.
Later, we'd tell everyone we met that we hadn't liked the city, without realising we weren't in the right frame of mind to have a good time there at all. We parked in Brisbane in the early afternoon and went straight for a walk along the best-known riverfront. Queensland's capital was an airy, spacious and extremely clean city. It also enjoyed very high levels of sunshine all year round, which made it an attractive city for Australians. It didn't suffer Melbourne's harsh winter or, to a lesser extent, Sydney's. A little way from the beach, it still offered a big freshwater lagoon right in the city centre, very popular every day of the week.
We hadn't come as tourists, and after a tour of the main sights we went straight to looking for work. Our aim was to find a job quickly to put some money aside and keep travelling, but we soon ran up against a sad reality: the job market didn't have much to offer. I could find a few scattered days with my forklift licence, but it promised to be harder for Cassandre. I got an interview with a temp agency, which placed me in a Bridgestone warehouse for a few days a week. I spent the whole day picking tyre orders, rolling them from the storage area to the dispatch bay. The team was very friendly, a great bunch of Australians who seemed to get on wonderfully. The pressure was minimal and the job pretty cool.
We'd already started to notice it in Sydney, but in Brisbane it became glaring for me: the difference in treatment between permanent staff and casuals. For all its El Dorado image, Australia and its unbridled free-market approach made the world of work very precarious. You could still be a temp ten years after joining a company. As casuals, we clearly understood we were just malleable, flexible labour, which bothered us as French people. But when you raised the subject with Australians, they all gave the same answer: it suited them.
Cassandre had had enough. We were losing money, losing time, the city was boring and she was really fed up with not working. If we were going to spend money, we might as well do it while moving on through the country. So we'd decided to leave after my last scheduled day of work. I explained the situation to my new colleagues, and when the time came I took the bus and tram to meet Cass and Romain at his hostel. They were both as depressed as could be, heads in their hands after a long rainy day doing nothing.
Of course it was easier for me, since I'd been busy and had seen people, but I tried to cheer them up. I ordered drinks at the bar and said what I'd been feeling since we arrived in this city. We hadn't come on holiday but on a long-term trip, and that meant accepting difficulty. Of course not everything would be rosy on this adventure. Of course there'd be storms, low points, disappointments, the unexpected, even disasters. But it's the nature of life not to warn you and to catch you off guard. Brisbane hadn't lived up to our expectations? Well, let's move on.
Cass and I would head north, and I tried to convince Romain to go back down to Sydney to get his old job back and rejoin his mates. Spirits warmed up and smiles started to return. Yes, it was a rough patch, but life is made of cycles, and you had to keep your head down and make the decisions that needed making.
Coming out of the shower, Cass showed me an ad in a Facebook group for a farm job. A Frenchwoman named Léa said that she and a friend were leaving their jobs cleaning water troughs and that her employer was looking for people. She'd contacted him directly, and after talking to her we had an email address to apply to with a good chance of being taken. Léa assured us they were looking for about ten people for various jobs, and she even deleted the post so as not to be swamped with messages. We polished our CVs and sent a long email to Daryle Belfort, the manager of the Wyhalla property, setting out our motivation.
At 9 pm we said goodbye to Romain with a big hug and parted ways there. Our paths were separating after three months of sharing and friendship, and we didn't know when we'd see each other again. We wished him luck and took the wheel towards Noosa. We drove for an hour before stopping by a football pitch to sleep. We hid between two trees, switched off the lights and enjoyed the quiet. After a few moments we were ready for sleep. At 5:30 am my alarm went off in the car. I'd set it so early to resend the email to Daryle, hoping to be among the first he saw when he opened his inbox. It was a slightly sneaky technique, but anything goes when it comes to landing a job.