At 6am on Boxing Day I was inducted into the world of Abdul. All the newcomers, I’d been told, worked for Abdul. Over time, you’d work your way up the hostel’s pecking order and land a job with another farm, some of them very good, but everyone had to do the hard slog for Abdul first. Whoever he was and whatever it was he did I didn’t know, but he always seemed to need a lot of people. There were about a dozen of us waiting out there in the car park that day for the morning pickup.
Turns out we were doing a job called wire-lifting, working on a vineyard. Abdul was in the labour hire business, supplying temporary workers to vast vineyard estates when they needed work doing on the vines. The vineyards liked it because they didn’t need to keep permanent people on the payroll (and probably because they wouldn’t pay our insurance if we were mangled in a horrific tractor accident, but that’s just me hypothesising).
This hostel was Abdul’s main source of labour, providing a fresh pool of bored, caged-in lost souls badly in need of paid employment. He took care of our transport and essentials like water and work tools. A dour yet humble Afghanistani man, he had fled the Taliban in his home country, emigrating to Australia and building up his own business here in Manjimup.
I don’t know what brought him to this part of the country but clearly it was an inspired move. Since arriving he had sent for his family and worked his way up from vineyard labourer to shift leader to finally now, several years later, running his own company. A pillar of the local community, he worked with tireless energy in building his empire. He deserved a lot of credit for his achievements.
Every day Abdul would turn up at the hostel in a big white bus and drive us to a different vineyard. Often they were very far away, miles out in the countryside, down long unidentified dirt roads. On the way we’d pass through indigenous forests, seeing kangaroos and emus bound across the bus's path in the dawn mist. Recognisable landmarks were sparse. The wilderness was big, green, remote and all-encompassing. The only insight into his mysterious former life would be the exotic Afghan bhangra music he listened to as he drove.
Our crew did three kinds of work. Firstly there was the wire-lifting, adjusting wires on the grapevines to make the vines grow higher and harvest better. Then there was grape picking, which happened later in the year. And finally there was trunk-rubbing, which not only had a dodgy-sounding name, but was the toughest job of the lot. Working as fast as possible, you had to get down on your hands and knees and work along the grapevine, pruning the trunks of excess shoots. After a morning of trunk-rubbing I had the arthritic joints of an eighty year-old.
I’d got what I was after – days ticked off against my working visa. For the next month, I worked nearly every day with Abdul and his crew. The work itself was simple enough and I couldn’t complain about the pay or the hours. But what made the job tough were the heat and the sun. We worked from 7am well into the afternoon, and this being the summer, temperatures climbed above 30˚C most days.
We worked hard. By 4pm our crew of Koreans, Taiwanese and Europeans would collapse exhausted into the minibus and we’d be on our way back to the hostel. There was drinking water on the bus, and sometimes even a beer at the end of our shift, courtesy of Abdul and his voluminous cooler. We’d sleep on the drive home, recuperating ready for the day to come.
The evenings at the hostel passed slowly, alcohol medicating the perpetual cycle of work and sleep. People hung out in groups, playing pool, watching TV, listening to music. Over time you’d fall into the routine, early to rise, early to bed. From 5am each day the kitchens would stir into a flurry of activity as everybody made their breakfasts and lunches ready for the morning pickup.
There were eighty or so travellers staying there in peak season. Backpackers came and stayed for months on end, working and saving. There was much partying. Days off were a blessing and a curse; the opportunity to rest, but the vexing question of what to do out here? There was literally nothing unless you had a car at your disposal. I have to say though that this was the best working hostel I’ve stayed at. Naomi ran it on honest principles and didn't promise what she couldn't deliver.
2008 soon became 2009. The hostel organised a trip to Pemberton for the occasion, sparking more drunken revelry. Several days later, a personal milestone: I’d been travelling for one year. All that time I spent in Asia and elsewhere seemed like a distant memory. My old life at home was a fabled dream, and I began to relish the connectedness and luxury I’d always taken for granted.
Now and then I’d remonstrate with Naomi to let me in the office so I could fire off an email or two to update my friends. Mostly I was too tired from working to be bothered communicating or stringing together the requisite words to describe my situation. Every day felt the same. I was becoming lost within myself. I was like Alex Garland’s character in The Beach, struggling to find my personal Vietnam, but confused about what it was I was actually looking for.
Luckily all that was about to change. I was buggering off again. On holiday!
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