The Great Grape Picking Adventure

Hello everyone! Well our first few days in Perth landed us some sweet grape picking jobs!! Well so we were told anyway... We went to a travellers recruitment agency and they found us some grape picking jobs in a town called Dunsborough, south of Perth near Margaret River (thats wine country for people not familiar). After buying rubber boots, a rain poncho, gloves and such, in case it rained, we hopped on the bus and headed for our new jobs. We stayed at the YHA Beachouse, which was only 50 meters from the beach!! The hostel was about 2km out of the little town and it seemed like we were at the lake staying in a cabin or something. We spent the first day there exploring the area and took some bikes out and about on a trail following the coast. The beach was so beautiful!! It was the first time we had a good look at the Indian Ocean, the colour of it was such an amazing green.
The next day were were up at 6am to catch the shuttle to the vineyard. We were under the impression that we would be making some good money, since so many other travellers do it. This is when reality hit. We found out that we would only be getting $2 a bucket!! The first day we worked our butts off and managed to fill 35 buckets each. The second day was even less, and our optimisim was beginning to fade. The third day we were not in good moods at all. The first day our boss said to be gentle with the vines; today if there was any thing in our way of the grapes we ripped, snapped, and slashed through it! I have to admit the work was actually pretty fun, we were outside in beautiful country, great weather, and finished work at 1pm, still lots of time to enjoy the day. It was just the thought of making $50 for a hard days work that turned us off. Erynn wasn't enjoying the spiders and webs we were coming across so much either. One day she was snipping away then made a blood curdling scream and jumped away from the vines. I thought she cut herself so I bent down to see through the vine to see if she was ok only to see a spider come flying my way!! A huge bright red wolf spider crawled on Erynns hand and she flicked it off... right towards my little peep hole. Nice. A half second later she stabbed it with her clippers, and then proceded to stomp the spider to a bloody pulp.
These clippers they gave us are pretty sharp, and you have to move pretty quick if you want to make any money. The second day Erynn got a bit too close to my side of the vine and almost cut her thumb off! I put a bit of a gouge in her thumb, but she was ok. Then a few minutes after that I accidentally stabbed her other hand... haha oops. It's funny cause her mom called later that day and when Erynn told her what I did Helen said "well you (erynn) better be more careful and only cut on your side!" hahaha. Thanks for understanding my point of view Helen, those buckets don't fill themselves!
So after our 3rd day of work and having to sit out in the +42 degree heat for 40 mins waiting for the shuttle to pick us up, we decided that we had enough, and retired from grape picking - earning a total of $120. Here we are back in Perth and looking for work again. We went to a different agency and they tried sending us off to pick mango's!! We're not falling for that one again. These aussies are a sneaky bunch.
Thats about it from us for now. We uploaded a bunch of pics n stuff if you want to take a peek.
Talk to you again soon!!
Nate & Erynn