2 hours South of Darwin, in the middle of the Outback off of the Stuart Hwy is a roadhouse called Emerald Springs. It’s not your typical roadhouse, or what you would expect a roadhouse to look like (definatly not the type of roadhouse Patrick Swayze worked at in the movie). This is more like a casual bistro, almost a romantic setting with the walls a soft grey , fresh flowers are picked and put on the tables every day and candles light the tables at night. The patio is covered and has plants of all different kinds in all it’s corners; candles sit on the tables as well to light the nights and the beer garden is strung with pretty twinkling white lights. Out the back you have the donga’s where the miners from the surrounding mines live and stay during their work weeks. Off to the side is a house-like donga where all the staff live and in between the miners and staff living quarters is the campervan park. All of this is surrounded by beautiful landscaping of trees , bushes and beautiful flowers that I can’t even begin to name. Beyond this is nothing but bush and beyond that is more bush. When the sun rises the sky goes purple and then into pink and orange and when it sets it is just as colourful. Emerald Springs is just a place it’s not even a town, no population, it’s just a little stop off on your way across the Hwy. It sounds beautiful doesn’t it?
It is beautiful, and hot, soo fucking hot. By 11am it’s almost 40 degrees, and sometimes its just as hot inside as it is outside and you just sweat. We have snakes, and Cain Toads surround us – they like to great us on our front step – we have kissing geko’s, skints (a lizard type of thing), bush flies – they literally sit on your face and the rest of your body - and ants! Heaps of ants. They get into everything and I mean everything, you drop one thing without even noticing and next thing you know your floor is covered, they are in our sink, our bed, sometimes our food – I had the joy of sharing a bag of chips with 200 of them, I didn’t even realize they were in the bag, I’m sure you can imagine the rest – and our house is invest with Daddy Long Legs – I have learned to ignore them.
As beautiful and as interesting as it may sound we honestly don’t like it here…well wait, we do like it here, but the owner is crazy. His expectations in the work place are just above and beyond anything normal. He has OCD when it comes to cleanliness. We literally have to mop the floor every 45 minutes because if there are footprints he considers it disgusting and we have to clean with sterilizer that they use in hospitals and it’s still not enough. No mistakes can be made, we made mistakes on our first day and he said we needed to do better. You get in trouble if you talk to someone for more then 30 seconds and we are constantly told what we are doing wrong and not what we are doing right. Him and his wife went away our first weekend and when we came back he told Dan we did a really good job and then two days later he told Dan that the place was disgusting when they got back and we need to do better? He speaks very condescending and has no respect for women. He barley says two words to me but acts all buddy buddy with Dan. Today I brought something to the wrong table and he said “that is fucking uncalled for” he is always swearing and instead of telling us what to improve on or what we are doing right he just speaks down to us, especially me. The owners wife is sick with leukaemia and has good days as well as bad days. They want staff that can help take the work load off of her which we are more then happy to do, but he is the worst when it comes to helping. She will be out in 40 degree weather cleaning rooms and he is sleeping. He tells us what to do but is the laziest cunt I have ever met, he will yell and scream but wont do anything himself. We had a big function for leukaemia the other night, we all worked 12 hours plus, we were exhausted and all he did was point and give directions while all of us including his wife worked our asses off. The next morning we were all in there doing the buffet breakfast and putting the restaurant back together (once again including her) and he walked around with a beer talking to guests and shouting out orders. When he closes at night nothing is prepped for the next morning or cleaned because he expects me (I am the morning girl) to do it all when I come in and sometimes it slows me down, there is no sugar, coffee, there are piles of dishes, the toilets haven’t been cleaned, garbage bins are full up to the rim and then he will come in and give out orders. Now we only have two chefs because two left so he is working mornings with me and he should not be in the kitchen, even Dan says the same thing. He is too high strung. Dan can smell beer on him sometimes. One minute he is singing at the top of his lungs in the kitchen and then he turns around and swears at you. Today Kate and I were rearranging some furniture on the patio because it was still out of place from the event. We had to set it up in a spot that it is not usually in because we can’t move the pool table back. We just wanted to clean things up the way he likes things to be. You know what he said? “ that’s not where it goes!” “I know but everything was all over the place and we were just trying to clean up until the pool table gets moved” “The boys will move it later because that’s not where it goes” he didn’t even say thank you just told us it was wrong even though we were making the “presentation” look good and “presentation is the most important thing.” After the night of the event one of our chefs signed out and he had 16 hours, straight no break. “you are honestly gonna claim all those hours?” asked our manager. “ The night was for charity you are expected to donate some of your hours. I can’t believe you are claiming all of them” You know what, we worked our asses off, the chefs worked 10 days straight and then a 15 hour day and then anything over 12 hours we are expected to donate our hours to charity??? Get fucked!!! That is not right and they can’t make us. We didn’t even get a thank you, just shit the next day to clean up…well that’s a lie, Dan and I went in for a drink and his wife bought us a round but other then that nothing. It’s always you are not doing enough or your not doing it right or your not doing it my way because it’s the best.
The manager is the same way…he is a young English guy with no prior experience. Everytime Dan and I worked with him he was like do this, do that, this needs to be done that needs to be done while he did nothing. Dan and I did everything. He even had the odacity to show me step by step to wash dishes!!! I finally lost my shit with him and told him he does not need to talk to me condescendingly and treat me with more respect, I’m not an idiot. “Well if you did it right the first time I wouldn’t have to speak to you like that” “Excuse me!?! Just because I did something wrong doesn’t mean you have to talk to me like that. People make mistakes, it doesn’t give you the right to treat them like idiots. It’s not what you say it’s how you say it and it really needs to change. One night Dan and I were having a couple of drinks and sitting on the laptop, Dan went in to grab us another drink and the manager said “doesn’t Emmie work tomorrow? Should she be having another wine” I had three glasses in three hours and I am sorry but I am 31 years old, who do you think you are watching what I drink. He even does it at the house if we are all sitting around having drinks…”who opens tomorrow?” “can you guys turn the tv down?” ughhh. Though after my little talk with him things changed a bit, he gaveDan and I his car for the night so we could go to Darwin on our days off.
It was so nice getting out of the Springs for a night though the car ride there was …well…it sucked! Not that we should complain due to the fact we got a car but man did this car suck. It had no A/C so we had to keep the windows down. The stereo had an ipod dock that didn’t work so we had no music, the speedometer was broken so we didn’t know how fast we were going and it was soo hot and it is even hotter in Darwin because of the humidity. To top it off the stereo needs to be unplugged when the car is turned off because it drains the battery but the stereo got stuck and we couldn’t get it out to unplug it. It was hot and humid and all we wanted was a beer but we had to unplug this stupid thing. We were so annoyed because of the heat and we couldn’t stop sweating. My cleavage looked like Niagara Falls and Dan in just his shorts literally looked like he stood under my cleavage of the Falls because he was drenched. Finally after checking into a cheap motel and getting a knife we solved the problem.
We stayed at the Value Inn and let me tell you , you definitely get what you pay for. The room was so small I felt like I was back on the Clipper lol but it served it’s purpose considering we were only using it to sleep.
We went to Shennanigans (the place we met up with Nik last time in Darwin). Alex, one of the Canadians I lived and worked with in Karumba is living in Darwin so I called her up and she met us for drinks. Man did we get pissed up. She took us to this place called Monsoon’s where they almost didn’t let Dan in because he was drunk but I talked his way out of it. We finally get in and are having a drink when Dan trying to speak, slurring his words over his now intoxicated British accent “babe, can I have room key? Be back” “what do you need it for?” “to freshen up” I start laughing “you do not need to freshen up you want to go to sleep” he shakes his head. “Alright we will all go back” we skull our drinks and walk back to the Value Inn. I run in to use the toilet and when I come out Dan is beginning to take off his clothes “umm babe can you wait Alex is…oh, ok you want to take your pants off now” and then he is naked “Wow Dan I just saw your penis, good job there Emmie” OMG great first impression. Anyways like I knew he wouldn’t he didn’t freshen up he went right to sleep. Sweet, girls night! We had a fab time and tried to dance it up but we were too drunk, but it was great seeing her again and so good to have a girls night. The next morning it was back to the Springs.
We both are really trying, to like it here. Instead of saying how long we have been here we go how many weeks we have left. We talk about what we are going to do on our road trip after here and think about all the money we are saving. The money is great, we pull in over a grand a week so we are saving heaps due to the fact there is nothing here and with no car (unless borrowed) we are here at all times. I keep trying to think of the money we are making but sometimes I think sanity is worth more then money.
We found that if at work all we do is clean and wash the floor it seems to make the owner happy but then one thing happens and he just loses it there is no room for error and I am sorry I am human mistakes will happen. It’s stressing me out and I am always walking on egg shells. I am stressed out to the point that I have headaches every day, my appetite has gone down, my stomach is upset and my mouth hurts (one of my stress signs) plus on top of that I am dehydrated from the heat so I feel like shit all the time. Dan is calm and chill but some days I can tell he just wants to bust. Now we have 10 days straight of work but then we have two days off so we are going to Darwin for a few days. We wanted to go to some of the Falls but because of wet season most things are closed off till April so we just head to Darwin for drinks and whatever else we can get ourselves into, maybe some new ink? What do you think mum? Lol you know it’s gonna happen!
Just like Karumba this is an experience, and I know I will look back on it and smile just like Karumba. I try not to stress but it’s hard with someone like the owner, Dan has literally been my sanity I don’t know what I would do without him. Now we just have to push on 9 more shifts and then it’s time for Darwin!!!
