Anny Chih

Bus Stop Hostel

When I first arrived in Brisbane and was looking for farm work, the guy at the Job Desk at Bunk said that I’d only be able to find work in Bundaberg. I phoned the National Harvest Line and they said the same thing. They gave me one number, which was that of Bundaberg Backpackers & Travelers Lodge / Bus Stop Hostel (the two are owned by the same couple). When I talked the guy on the phone, he seemed friendly and said that all I had to do was go to Bundaberg and stay at their hostel and they’d find me work, no problem. He said because I was a girl, they would be able to find work for me more easily because the farmers liked to employ girls for the packing sheds. I asked why, and he said that was just the way it was done – guys did the picking and girls did the packing, and they were short on girls. I hung up the phone feeling quite pleased with myself and looking forward to farm work in Bundaberg. Then, I googled the place and read the reviews…

To give you an idea of what I read, here are a few snippets from hostelz.com from back then, and a few newer ones from the past couple of months (looks like nothing has changed):

“…even if you have to sleep outside with no blankets, no work in the pouring rain with only tomato sauce packets and dry instant noodle to sustain you, it would be far superior to this f-ing hellhole! The owner, Eugene, is by far the worst, most arrogant, disgusting, pathetic excuse for a man I have ever met in my life. He is also extremely perverted…” -June 2008

“Yes it is riddled with bedbugs, the roof does leak, and the owner is rorting every possible dollar out of each backpacker by taking every opportunity to kick them out before the end of their stay so that they do not have to refund their accommodation fees and then they can re-let the room to some new unaware backpacker.” -September 2008

“the worst place i have ever been. Eugene the owner is a rude bastard. you get eaten by bedbugs. the rooms are smelly… they charge 170 AUD for this sh*thole! I was kicked out because I asked Eugene whether I will finally get a job, after two weeks being at a standby list! Do not come here! just wasted time, money, and energy!” – September 2009

“This is not a Hostel! Its a new way to make money from Backpackers. If you call them they say, come around we have work. You arrive and find yourself on a standby list on place fifteen. Then go to your room and find a cube without windows, one shower, and toilet for over ninety people and a dirty kitchen. And its cost $170 to 180 a week, and if you get kicked (what is very easy) you dont get anything back. You don’t get work here. So if you dont like someone send him to this hostel!” -August 2009

These weren’t the ones that scared me shitless though. It was actually one I read from a girl who was sexually harassed by the owner that really freaked me out of even going to Bundaberg. I can’t find it now, but I asked about it when I went to Bundaberg to scope out the work scene for future backpackers. The backpacker I spoke with at the hostel said “I haven’t heard of anything like that… But come to think of it, there was a girl and her friend who left last week for the other hostel…”

The Real Bundaberg

Bundaberg and its hostels aren’t as bad as I had imagined, but they wouldn’t get anything higher than a one and half star accommodation rating.

I had stopped at the Bundaberg information desk to ask for directions to Cellblock Backpackers – the most popular backpacker work hostel in Bundaberg. I also asked the woman at the desk to mark a couple of other backpacker hostels I should check out on the map if I was looking for work. She marked where Bus Stop Hostel and Dingo Blue Backpackers were. I had never heard of Dingo Blue Backpackers before now.

Bundaberg Backpackers & Travelers Lodge

$170 / week (4 bed dorm); estimated 2+ weeks wait time for work; $17.50 / hour wages

Bundaberg Backpackers & Travelers Lodge

Bundaberg Backpackers & Travelers Lodge is owned by the same couple that owns Bus Stop Hostel across the street. I spoke with one person from each location, who were both males. I asked the first one if there were any girls living in the hostel and he said there were, but that they were all at the local Anzac pool. I saw about 20 or 30 guys around the two hostels and only 3 girls (two of which were with guys who were obviously their boyfriends). In the other hostels I visited, the vast majority of backpackers there were female.

Bundaberg Backpackers & Travelers Lodge looks pretty decent from the outside and the work boots outside are all very neatly displayed on shoe racks in the front entrance area. I couldn’t take a look inside though because the place has very strict rules and one of them is that there are absolutely no outside visitors allowed.

The guy I talked to had been there for a few weeks now and has found it easier to find work in Bundaberg than any of the other places he tried along the East coast. He agrees with most of the hostel reviews that the place has extremely strict rules, but he’s been content with the way things are run. His room is only half full (two people staying in a four bed dorm), as are all the other rooms in the hostel, and he said the place was really clean. He waited about two weeks before he got work on a farm but he’s happy with his hours. He said that you typically get a half day of work each day that you get work (but you don’t know what your hours are until you’re there) and it comes to about $100 a day. The $170 / week rent includes transportation to the farms in the hostel vans.

Bus Stop Hostel

$170 / week (4 bed dorm); estimated 2+ weeks wait time for work; $17.50 / hour wages

Kitchen at Bus Stop Hostel

The guy I spoke with at Bus Stop Hostel had been working for the past four weeks doing various farm maintenance work, and waited two weeks before it came up. He said he was happy with the way things were at the hostel, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone more gloomy about a work situation.

To sum up our conversation: Bus Stop Hostel was the first place he found in Bundaberg, and he found it through the National Harvest Line (they advertise through them – Sidenote: I find it very shameful that the Australian Government allows the National Harvest Line to not only recommend only certain hostels that have arranged to advertise through them [I'm assuming the Harvest Line gets revenues from this], but to also tell backpackers they’re the only ones in that area that provide work. They’re lying to backpackers and it’s disgusting). He signed in at Bundaberg Backpackers & Travelers Lodge (there’s only one reception desk for the two hostels), and he was told to stay at Bus Stop Hostel. He doesn’t know why or what system they use. Everyone else he knows at Bus Stop Hostel is staying there either because it was the first one they heard of through the National Harvest Line, or because the other hostels were booked full.

Cellblock Backpackers

$185 / week (4 bed dorm); estimated 1+ week wait time for work; $6 charge for work transportation

Cellblock Backpackers

Cellblock has room for about 120 people, and it was completely booked out (it normally is). The place is packed to the brim and has a very lively hostel atmosphere. The rent it more expensive at $185 / week, but the reason why so many backpackers go here is because you’re guaranteed work. The average wait time to get work at Cellblock is only over one week, compared with over two weeks at other places. The reason this is so, is because they have connections with more farms in the area (about 15), and many farms exclusively use one hostel or another to hire workers.

Dingo Blue Backpackers

$175 / week (4 bed dorm) if you’re working or $100 / week if you’re not working; estimated 2 weeks wait time for work

Dingo Blue Backpackers

Dingo Blue does not look like a place I would want to stay in. It looks run down, and honestly… just plain dirty. But, in the same breath I have to say that I haven’t found happier workers. I met a few people here and they were all really friendly. This was the hostel that the girl who left Bundaberg Backpackers & Travelers Lodge ended up going to. I also spoke with a girl here that used to stay at Cellblock and asked her why she left since it’s so hard to get into Cellblock in the first place. She was really lucky that the day she and her friend arrived in Bundaberg, Cellblock happened to have two free beds. She left Cellblock because they charged too much ($185 + $6 for each day’s ride into work); Dingo Blue doesn’t charge for work transporation.

This hostel is owned by a hardworking couple that owns the farms that they send the backpackers to. I met a few people who had been working and living there for months now, and they stay because the owners “are really fair.” For example, when there was no work between seasons, the rent was only $100 / week. And when the fruit was small, they would pay them by the hour rather than by the bucket (which is how a lot of other farmers will pay backpackers because it’s cheaper).

The backpackers here agree that the place is really dirty, but they call it home with a smile on their faces.

Tips for Backpackers Looking for Farm Work in Bundaberg

1. Expect to wait at least a week between when you get put on the waitlist, and when you actually get to start working (and make sure you budget for it).
2. Don’t just stay at the first hostel you find. Check out rooms at different hostels to see which one best fits your personality. If the hostel owner won’t let you see a room beforehand, look elsewhere before handing over a week’s rent.
3. There are several hostels for backpackers looking for work in Bundaberg. If you visit the Bundaberg Information Centre, they can give you a list of hostels that say which ones organize work. Note: the prices on this list are outdated. Alternatively, you can just go into town, pick a street and walk down it. You’ll find about half a dozen hostels within four blocks of each other and most of them offer work arrangements.
4. Arrive in Bundaberg on a weekday. All of the hostels have weird reception hours on weekends.

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