Carpenter Job in Australia

Doing a carpenter job in Australia
By Justin Grutheil

I never once in my life thought that I could find a job in Australia to do with my carpentry work. I was so pleasantly surprised when my boss actually suggested I do something like that! I soon found out that there were plenty of jobs available in Australia for me to do with my carpentry and that if I really gave it a go it’s something that I could do for quite a while! He showed me a few different ones that were available and there was one in Adelaide that really stood out to me. I wouldn’t get paid for it but I would get to stay and eat there for free, so doing a carpenter job in Australia for that reason alone sounded quite good! I applied for the position and luckily enough I was accepted, so it was on to Adelaide I went!

The job itself was on a large property that the owner was planning in turning into an animal park for tourists. As you could imagine there was a lot of work that needed to be done! First the owners showed me to a small areas in which I would live for the few months I was there, and as I was only expecting a tent in the ground I was extremely surprised to see it was a little bit more than that! It was a tiny little room but it had it’s own TV with computer and everything so I was set! The owner would then go on to explain my exact duties. One such duty was to actually help out with the animals, as they had already received a few different animals that were ready to go in the park. These animals would need early care in the morning by cleaning and feeding them. This wasn’t much of an issue to me as I love animals so it was pretty easy for me to get into. I would feed them straight away after getting up and make sure they had clean pens and water as well. It was soon time though to get into the serious building work, and that was what I was excited about!

The park had plans to have numerous types of animals so that obviously required several different types of cages and pens to go. The owners had several plans drawn up but they also encouraged me to draw some up of my own in case I had any unique ideas. One idea I did have which I showed to them was for a walk in aviary, that would allow people to walk in a cage and walk up stairs and nice and high and really experience some birds up close and personal. They loved the idea and told me that could be my ‘pet project’. I thought we would have to go to a hardware store to get a lot of wood and other materials, but they had actually a whole bunch of other companies donate several piles of wood and tools which worked out great for them. We would work fairly long days to get started and it was all about getting a lot of the foundations and everything put up properly. It was obviously a long process and something that didn’t happen overnight, but after a few months things really started to look good. They had paths carved out in the park and then had signs and everything put in, and I even helped put the finishing touches on the visitors centre. The last project finished was my aviary, and without being bias it is the best looking thing in the park!

I was even lucky to stay around for the park opening which turned out to be a pretty big deal! There were several people in attendance, including the mayor of Adelaide so that was a pretty big thrill! The park opened with a bang and the last I heard they were still doing very well with tickets! But it was a great experience to have in building the park and I hope you get a chance to do something like that one day too!