NSW
1132 posts
Make no mistake,these days a great percentage of north coast country folk regard new settlers and travellers as MGBs,that is Marijuana Growing Bastards,posing a threat to thier clean living family morals.I was one of those MGBs,the grass growing bug had got me.It's a little like gambling,a loser game with the players always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
As exciting and profitable as it may seem,large scale growing can be a costly trip to failure.Before you turn your first sod,think about what you're gwtting into.The odds on reaping a huge crop and rich rewards are long.Some end up with a few pounds,but the majority finish with a few 20 inch wizzers,spindly sticks that are not worth the endless hours of trekking,tending and parnoia that it takes to produce them.
With the dream of early retirement,i set off.
My first year in the country was an eye opener,emerging from the suburban blanket I headed as far nortyh as possible.In those days Qld did not have life sentences for growing that it does now.Like a raw prawn in hot water i got burnt.I had 3 choices of location for my crop.First a coastal town,then a spot more remote,but still near the coast and finally an area that lay inland and was very isolated.I visited both coastal locations and ended up wasting the season.The good times,surf and abundance of local weed sucked me in.There's always next season.
Finally i headed off to location C, a spot so far west and so remote that when i arrived i thought i had wandered into another time zone.all i knew about the place was that a mate owned it,that it was cool to stay there as long as i wished with one condition "do not grow dope on my place",which suited me fine as I wasn't planning on getting caught in my own back yard.
I thought that i had it made,the chance to pull off the big one.The place was isolated,with no local cop for miles and the only settlement was a few broken down farms and sawmills.But when I saw the reaity of the situation,I realised that things wern't gunna be easy.They say the country breeds two types of person;the cynics and gossips.Suspicion is the first thing that comes to mind when i think about country folk.When I first arrived I had no idea just how wary they were of strangers,particularly anyone who looks like an MGB.
It took me 2 days of driving to get to the town nearest to spot C.My new home was supposed to be 2 hours drive from town.... at least that was how long it was meant to take,"Fourth road on the right,just past the creek" wasn't just down the raod it was 25 miles and several stops top ask people who apparently didn't know but really did.It took five hours I had been told the place had a house,which was in fact an old sawmill camp site and that it was next door to Baily's place.Asking dirrections to my new home was like a question an answer session with a cop who wants to charge you but hasn't got the goods on you,for example
"how do you get to Baily"s place"
"what's his first name",I didn't know there was 35 Bailys in the district.
Next would be the standard"where ya from?"
"sydney"
"Oh Sydney hey,which way did ya come?" or some other idle question.Quires flow out of the broad faced Aussie farmer the same way they roll their ciggy,slow and methodical,playing the famous game of act simpleton,whist their minds worked overtime.
There is no such thing as a 2 minute explanation in the country.After five hours of yarns and "down the road a bit",I found the place.The place has also discovered me.I found out later that by 6 o'clock that the local beer line and watering hole had all the details on the young bloke in the '70 holden ,was gunna move into the Kelly's old camp opposite the Baily's farm.
My anonymity was already blown.
WA
373 posts
When we first spotted the MGB we knew another southerner was up here to make it big. Our concern of course was that he would attract unwanted attention and expose our lucrative operation. So we decided to set him up. First we made him feel exposed, just gave him that good old "country" slow bo, "where you from son?" "oh yeah which way'd you come" you know the typical treatment. It soon became clear he was scouting for a place to grow, so we watched him and let him settle into a a routine, let him get his seeds to germinate, and in the ground, after 6 weeks the shoots were looking pretty healthy he had his his retic up, the bugs were under control, he seemed less paranoid, and we sensed a general relaxation in his demeanour. Thats when we decided to strike. "Lets break his moral", Morton suggested. Mortons a bad bastard with big guns, nasty dogs, and bad habits. The first night we just came within a few k's of his plantation, did the whole shooting match, 4wd's big lights, Music and a **** load of shooting, 3,0's are pretty loud at 2am and he fair dropped a log that night, with the boys hooning over the hills carrying on like pork chops, shooting trees, and howling at the moon, that was when I snuck around into the growing area and sprayed the lot with a gentle waft of round up. The round up we use is nothing like that you get from Bunnings, its Napalm would be a more apt description.
Any ways a few days later there he was back in town, albeit a bit dispondent, filing up with juice, getting supplies in........
