Clare Valley Week 1

On Thursday I called Ryan the supervisor at Ackland Vineyard Services (AVS) to confirm our attendance for the induction for the following day and then Adam and i made our way to Clare to have a look around. Clare was pretty much one road that had a few big named stores like Target, Subway, Cheap as Chips, Telstra and the rest were mostly privately owned places such as cafes, a toy store, newsagent, book shop.



And the most popular places were the 3 pubs-The Taminga, The Middle Pub and Bentleys which as we found out is where most people would frequent after work, weekends, pretty much whenever they could. We soon learned that as there was not a lot to do in Clare or the surrounding areas most people including the women would spend most of their wages in the pub or at the pokies. Adam and i continued looking around and decided to get membership at the local dvd shop, Mondays was going to be our dvd nights as it was only $4 for the hire of a new release. We also found out that the local library had wireless internet and so that was to be our second home.



Friday was the day of our induction at AVS. We turned up at 10.00am. We sat down and started to listen to the do’s and dont’s of working in the vineyards, how AVS operated and what was expected of us. Towards the end a man asked the question, if the temperature went above 40c were we still expected to work ?, the response was a sharp Yes. They also informed us of how bites from spiders and other insects could occur and that we would most likely snip our fingers a fair few times. I was not looking forward to grape picking! After the induction Adam and I went to buy some high visibility shirts from Cheap as Chips (now my favouritest store ever) and gloves, ready for the big start on Monday. On the way back home I had seen a sign displaying Bingo at the local CFS hall in Sevenhills (Community Fire Service) and persuaded Adam that we should go. So at 8pm we turned up to see what was going on.



There were about 20 people staring at us as we walked in but we were quickly welcomed and given our bingo books. We sat next to a couple of “regulars” who showed us how it all worked as they did their own little games within Bingo. The caller welcomed everyone and started to talk about how it was the Bingo club’s 31st anniversary and that monies raised go to the local cricket club and then we started. And if you’re wondering if we got a chance to call BINGO, I can tell you we didn’t and a couple of weeks on we have still not won a single game.