3. Molong; The Idle Life Is Sweet Indeed

7/12/09  -  15/12/09

It’s been almost a week since that fateful day when we first arrived into Molong Caravan Park.

Memang tak ada rezeki agaknya. The weather was atrocious. Angin kuat menyebakan cherry semua damage. And hujan yang turun 2,3 hari menyebabkan cherries ada yang tak masak.

So the owner of the farm said that we could not start working just yet. Everytime we called him, ada2 saja masalah. So for almost a week and a half, all we did was makan, tidur, main2 dan membuat kawan dengan budak France di khemah sebelah.

It was SUCH an idle life.

The Caravan Park

It is just a small caravan park. We had separate toilet for gents and ladies. Inside each toilet were two showers and three toilets. There was also a laundry room and a barbecue place where we could prepare our food.

The rent for un-powered camp site was cheap indeed. 3 dollars per day!! What a bargain!

There were some caravans on the other side of the field. On OUR side,  there weren’t that many campers. There were only us, and two groups of French people and a Taiwanese lady. That’s it!

In such a small group of people, we became acquaintances. In the privacy of our tent, we gossiped about them as they must have gossiped about us every time they saw us praying in the gazebo.

When I first decided to come to work, I expected a lot of hardship. But for that first week, that wasn’t the case at all.

The laid-back life of fruit pickers

I realized how much I have missed the idle life. You know, the life of not having to worry about studying. It is a laid-back life.

I observed the routine of the French people who were fortunate enough to have obtained some work in a nearby farm. By 6.00 a.m (by the time we’ve finished our Subuh prayer and was ready to go back to sleep) they would already have made a move with their white van only to return in mid-day. They didn’t cook lunch, so I assumed their lunch must be as simple as it was easy to prepare. And at night, while we were praying the Isya prayer (for we ate dinner earlier), they would be eating their dinner. By the time we were all ready for bed (well, the hard ground), they would be going back to their air-matresses for sleep too.

And this routine was in constant repetition throughout the whole week.

They told me that they moved from one farm to the other all year round. And when they have enough money, they would travel and see places. And when money run short, they would start working again.

To me, that is quite adventurous if not dangerous. It seemed like they were satisfied to drift along with no permanent job. They were content to just move from one farm to another and pick any fruits within the current season and then spend the money they have earned seeing the world. No ties, no commitment. No headache.

And the money was not bad at all. For berry picking, you can get the least is 3 dollar per kg. If you work hard and efficient enough, you can get 100 kgs per day. That is like 300 per day of only 6 hours of working. And multiply that by 30 days would be 9000 dollars per month. Alomost double the salary of an intern doctor. And for only 6 hrs per day of working!

Yes it is hard, back-breaking, labour work….under the scorching summer heat, no less!! But the pay is really worth it (but only if you are efficient enough and work hard enough as I have discovered later). With very few expenses….the rent is cheap since you are living in a tent, no need to worry about bills…you only need to spend on petrol and food, basically.

So, if ANYONE think that you need paper qualification from a univerisity to get a lot of money, think again! Rezeki di mana2. Cuma kena kerja kuat. Itu yang tak sanggup tu.

As in the case of the French guys…they are doing cherry picking, not berries! That is a lot more money! And you will be surprised to know that they DO have paper qualification. One of them is an engineer and his girlfriend was studying Art and another one of them graduated in Computer Science.  They have just decided to stop working and lead a laid-back life while seeing the world.

We have met a lot of people who are like that. Maybe disillusioned and tired of corporate life or meaningless life, they’ve just decided to stop and travel while getting some serious thinking done.

The Malaysian Idle Life

Since we did not yet get a job, we just enjoyed our daily life in Molong. We took turns cooking and the rest of the day were filled with  free activities intervened by prayers and some tazkirah.

As I have mentioned before, the first two days I was quite miserable since I have not yet adapted to the surroundings. But once I have gotten used to the toilet routine and the eating routine, everything went smoothly.

I re-introduced batu seremban into our routine…which became a favourite past time between me, marlynna and wani. Sometimes we played UNO and some other camping game.

When I have discovered the existence of Molong library just across the caravan park, I was ready to settle in Molong and never return, lol.

I love small town libraries. They were filled with local newspapers and lots and lots of novels from many genres. Unlike the big town library or a univerity library which are designed for research, small town libraries are designed for the old ladies to keep their mind active by reading. So there are lots of fiction. More than there would be in the uni library. This library also has some very old magazines and very old publications that may have been published in our grandmother’s time. I just like the look of them. You can tell the era of the book’s publication just by looking at the book cover.

During my free time, I explored the Molong town. Very, very small town. Market, post-office, gas station, the butcher, the bank, the museum, the restaurants and the cafe, the hardware store….all of them can be found in one street. Compact and space-efficient!

I finished exploring in less than half and hour!

But I love it! Everything is within walking distance and it is enough for a self-sustaining life. The only difficulty is the lack of coverage in Molong. I didn’t call home for the rest of the week.

Sometimes, we traveled 45 minutes to Orange…which is a much bigger town than Molong. Orange has an even larger library! It has some shopping malls and book shops. We’ve been to Gloria Jeans twice in Orange in one week. I love Gloria Jeans coffee *sigh*.

Mount Canabolas

After a few days of being jobless and just lepak-ing around the campsite, we decided to do a bit of a sight seeing.

Since the nearest place of interest is the Mount Canabolas, we decided to go there. We considered the Dubbo Zoo, but it’s just too far away to drive from Molong.

We brought food (of instant Indo Mi, heh) and a thermos of hot tea. This time, I was bullied to be the driver.

I have driven in Australia a couple of times….but only very brief  drive to Jesmond and some other sisters’ houses. To be honest, that was my first time driving in more than  10 minutes around Australia.

The road there was atrocious! Jalan tanah merah, jalan berlubang, jalan batu-batu, jalan sempit naik gunung! My God! Tak best betul!

Once we;ve arrived at the main summit, the view was average jer. Tak der lah cun sangat pun. The only info of interest was the fact that this mountain was volcanic in origin. Tu jer. And of course several bush walking tracks which we did do. We chose the shortest track…the Young Man Track. The Young Man Track was a 1.4 km of hard climbing to another summit. Penat gila! Once we got to the summit, the view here was much better than the other one. We could see some pine trees with the Canobolas lake.

We sat there for hours, too tired to even think about the return journey back to the car. Some of us were writing in a journal, some were busy taking picture, some were just sitting and listening to their ipod. I wished I had brought my book. When we had our lunch at the top of the world, my energy was restored.

The return journey was even more exhausting. More climbing than descending. And we of course have to dodge some dog poos along the way. Once we have reached the main summit, all we wanted to do was lie down, no matter we were under the scorching Australian sun. Some of us swore, never to do this again.

Because our food supply had almost run out, we decided to drop at the Orange Town and get some supplies. I also decided to treat myself to another Gloria Jeans coco loco. Ahh…heaven! And I also found a small book shop where I obtained two books…one of them was a bargain.

I told them, “I am not driving anymore. I am too tired.”

But along the journey from Orange to Molong, instead of sleeping my exhaustion away, I read my book. And THAT was happiness.