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'CHILDERS'

Many people may have heard of Childers. Last year (2000) Palace Backpackers' hostel burned down and a lot of young people died. That was world news, though very sad.

Well, as we got there, we didn't stay at the same place as Coen and Peter. They stayed at the' Palace'. We stayed at a campsite. In a very old caravan we shared with an very friendly old man the first few days and later on with a cool young English bloke. But it was like half the price of what Coen and Peter paid.

It was not the best place to stay. You found cockroaches everywhere, in the cupboards, the beds. And they are a bit bigger as we are used to in Europe as well. We had many musquitos too.
But it was good to live in such a place and experience that.

The first morning we went to work and what do you think?... There was no work as we came there. Fucker! Thought we were doomed.
As we got back with two English lads, the owner got a phonecall of a lemonfarmer. So by coincedence we got another job.

Those English lads were Jay and Casper and are brilliant. Top lads!
They had a great car with all the stuff you need, like seats, bbq, tents, matrasses, just everything you need when you're travelling...
They were about to sell it, because they were leaving the country in a few weeks. We just needed that though Johan, me and Joost (who was coming in 1 week) didn't have a drivers license. But we thought fuck it , we'll see, we just can't resist the offer..

Work was probably the hardest I have ever done. Picking lemons out of lemontrees. Worked from 9 am till about 5 pm, not many hours but everynight we were so knackered we had no difficulties sleeping. Middays were the hardest, then there was no shade, there was not even an angle of the sun in the sky as you have here in Holland.

We lived very healthy and tried to save as much money as possible. No beer for a change and only a case of wine once. Everyday we bought some orangejuice and we mingled it with the lemons we took from work. One could have seen our bellies shrinking every day.

We stayed there for 2 weeks. Worked at the lemons for about 10 days and worked with watermelons and tomatos as well for two days. That is hard work as well. But it was very healthy all that fruit we got...

It was nice seeing Coen and Peter again. Spent a bit of time with them. They worked with tomatos but didn't save lots of money because they spent quite a bit. They were off to Byron Bay with a few people they met in their hostel.

Then the English lads decided to go to Frasier Island and we decided to join them. We went with a group of people we met from the campsite and where we had spent a good time with. All cool people: madman John, Marianne, Cas, Jay and Taf (his girlfriend).

Those 2 weeks where good weeks. I started drawing again after about 7 years as I met 2 people who had a drawing diary. It was not the cleanest place but it was alright to cope with. The first quarrels between Johan and me appeared, but what do you suppose after 2,5 months. We saved some money and we met some very good people...

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