Regardless of how we realized it, we realized we needed to make some more money if we were going to survive. So with an arrogant pride we decided to call up the working hostels we'd read about in the travel guide and work for a week or two and then continue our trip. All was going well until we got a hold of a hostel in Ayr, Queensland that regretted to inform us that there were not only no jobs currently available but that there were no rooms available in their hostel as they were entirely booked for two weeks with people waiting for the jobs that didn't exist yet. This was not part of our plan. We were already past the survive-for-two-weeks-on-our-savings point. In fact, we were getting quite desperately broke. All of a sudden the wind was no longer in our sails. We had plans...we were going to hike a trail called Eungalla "the one surefire track to see platypuses on" we were going to go sea kayaking in the Whitsundays we were going to do a lot of things. But we were counting on that dwindling savings to push us through these adventures and then with moths flying out of our wallets graciously walk into a harvest job (which to be fair the guide books made it seem they were innumerable, easily acquired, and everywhere--False). So, we skipped these adventures--vowing to return for the Whitsundays--in lieu of rushing up to Ayr where through the friendly receptionist JR had secured a room and there was the hint of another spot opening in which I could fill.
So we begrudgingly passed by Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays to arrive in the town of Ayr nearly 6 hours later. Hmmm....how to describe Ayr. Well it was the type of city whose Super Market closed at 5 pm and though we spent several days there I never actually saw 80% of the shops open at all. It was humble. It was meager. It was dull as hell is what it was. But the hostel seemed pretty cool at least. JR had his room and I managed to squeeze into a room too. Overall, we were feeling quite lucky. However, it was a bit alarming as the next day we noticed that dozens of hostel goers lounging around the hostel during the day doing nothing at all. This was vaguely perplexing but it was Saturday after all so we assumed that everyone would traipse off to work Monday. So there were tons of people just hanging out but not in the typical hostel-hippie-happy way where you meet everyone in the place in about half an hour and everyone starts drinking heavily where those new friendships are codified into lifelong facebook friendship status. No, not like that at all. There were cliques of seemingly those that were 'older' residents that didn't really seem to be interested in socializing with JR and I--'new' residents. To me this was quite a new feeling at a hostel. But my uneasiness passed when around six that evening (after a contingent of 20 or so more hostelers returned from working--meaning those sitting around DID NOT have a job at the moment) when we found out that an 'old' resident had his last day of work and further more his stag (bachelor) party that night. That is when the drinking began. Sufficed to say the ensuing time was debaucherous, disorderly, embarrassing, slovenly, glutinous, and many other such adjectives. It got ugly. Details of the night will not be given as they are both shameful and not readily accessible from the old noggin. Namely JR and I consumed 3 or 4 or 5 or 17 (as I mentioned, I can't quite recall) pitchers of white "goon" (boxed) wine--the cheapest drink at the bar--with super sugary cordial added in.
For those of you that don't know boxed white wine it is pretty sugary in itself. Add the cordial and put on repeat several, several times that is both A-a lot of low quality alcohol and B-a lot of sugar. This is of course perhaps the most deadly recipe for a deathly hang over. And unsurprisingly, that is just what we got. The hangover to end all hangovers in fact. My body hurt. It was not happy. Both of us were miserable all the next day AND the next day as well. Yes. A two day hangover does exist.
Just to add to our overall happiness and morale we decided to investigate the ins-and-outs of how the working functioned. To our annoyance we were 22nd and 23rd on the wait list. Meaning that we would indeed be stranded for 2 weeks at least before we could get work. This was not good. This made my head hurt. It was too much thinking and too much bad to comprehend at the moment. But at least matters couldn't get too much worse, right? WRONG! Very wrong. In our unbearably empty day JR called back home and talked to his grandmother and his mother. Unfortunately neither household was doing very well. His grandfather was bedridden and his mother in the hospital for surgery. His grandma seemed distraught and overwhelmed and he finished his conversation feeling like his family needed him. So much so that when he got off the phone he had this sad, empty, distant look in his eye and in a very slow and measured way told me that he felt like he was going to have to cut his Australian adventure short and go home. And soon. Soon in like if-we-can't-get-work-in-two-weeks-I'll-just-head-home soon.
... Well ... shit ...
Imagine every single bad action movie you've ever seen and more importantly ever single bad action movie plot line. In reality there is only one. This plot line has an initial rising action where everything is going well. Then just before midway the protagonist is confronted with a terribly difficult challenge.
Imagine Rocky 4 when Apollo Creed dies.
This is the only way I can think of to adequately describe our mental state at the time. Just utterly shattered.
At this juncture my body hurt, my head hurt, and now my heart hurt. This was devastating. The one, if not only, thing that JR and I's plan did include was always a "we". Now it was looking like even that was not going to work out for us. This was perhaps the most profoundly unhappy I have been in years. Not only was I feeling physically putrid I was profoundly unhappy. Unhappy in a way that is completely devoid of pleasant looking methods of actions: unhappy without hope. What followed was another day (day two of our hangover) of JR calling home, calling OEG, calling home, and then calling OEG again. He talked to Paul Horton, one of bosses who is perhaps the kindest man in the world, who was nothing but supportive of whatever JR felt he needed to do and in the end JR decided he did need to go home and live with his grandparents in Florida. But not right away if we could find work. He still wanted to both see some more of the country as well as earn a bit of money as he had no job waiting for him in FL.
This whole time I sulked. I licked my proverbial wounds as it were. Life was just sucky at the moment and nothing was going our way. True fact of life though is that one can only act this way for so long. About midday the second day I began to realize this. I realized I still felt like crap because of my hangover but instead of idly resenting the feeling I took ownership of it because after all who else was to blame I drank like a 16 year old highschooler at their first party? No one but myself. I decided to stop being a useless slug and get active rather than passive. I jumped online and literally in 20 minutes of dedicated searching not only had found a harvest information phone number, called it and received a number of a grape vine pruning job but ALSO called the farm, interviewed, and had gotten JR and I hired starting in two days.
20 minutes. No more. Just like that. From as low as one can be to lost in the stars. We had a job which meant we could leave Ayr and its hangover in the our wake and that JR could stay longer and hopefully finish out the winter and our road trip.
Cue 'rebuilding' hero montage.
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