Being wooed by his cousin Peter about the glories of catching buffalo Paul left his job at Prouds in Casuarina. He didn't think the job suited him anyway. His mum was a bit worried that he was giving up a job with prospects of a career but in the end Paul certainly had no regrets.
He had a great time out at the Thomsens where he discovered his love for the bush and for his extended family there. It was very valuable to spend some time with his Uncle Peter also as he was to pass away a few years later from cancer. They got to know each other really well and Uncle Peter was like another father figure to Paul.
Paul didn't go catching buffalo this year as things didn't go as intended with Uncle Peter's plans for catching. He ended up doing a couple of interesting jobs though.
Firstly he worked at the Panorama Mango farm at Middle Point for some nice old greek people. It was called a mango farm but there was no mangoes when he was there he recalls. He picked fruit like big queensland blue pumpkins (watch out for the sharp cut stem when catching them!), rock melons, egg plant, water melons, and acres of dreaded zuccinis! He couldn't believe how quick zuccinis grew - the first job every morning was to walk along the rows of zuccinis as far as the eye could see and carefully pick them and put them in one of the plastic shopping bags he was carrying. These were left full on the side of the row and picked up later.
He also worked at the Janamba Crocodile farm where he had all sorts of duties like skinning small crocodiles for hides, feeding very big crocodiles, mending fences etc. He won a radio competition once for people to ring up with the worst job that they had when he told them how he'd have to bansaw maggoty chickens up for the croc meals.
During this time at the Thomsens Paul did a lot of hunting and stuff in the bush with his cousin Peter and others that he really enjoyed.
