Another wet season opportunity.

Alby, a few thoughts:

Wet season 'gigs' often don't get advertised until the end of the dry season.

Lots get advertised for dry season positions, but generally they involve more work than we want to do.Camp hosting on a small campground could be ok though, but we haven't done that yet.

Keeping a watch on FB groups which cover areas of interest is a good way. Eg. We learned of positions at both Mt Hart & Kalumburu. Mt Hart has advertised annually for the last few years, but is not one which appeals to us.

This one was on greynomadsjobs.com but is the first of this type (remote wet season station) that I've seen on that site over the past few years.

Best way is to be travelling in the area of interest around August/September & asking around. That's how we got Moreton Telegraph Station last year. A prearranged house sit in Seisia fell through due to illness, so whilst in Weipa we 'advertised our availability on a FB group, had contact the following day from someone saying Moreton is looking for someone, so called in to Moreton a couple of days later on our way north, & left having arranged the wet season there on the shake of a hand.

The place we are at now came via birdwatching friends after the owners sent the position ad to Birdlife North Qld. It is the first one where we have ever been asked for references & was arranged/negotiated & agreed on 6 months in advance. So you could say that one was through 'networking'.

We have a sense that Cape York & the Kimberley and ......... most outback areas are relatively small communities where provided you do the right thing by folk one thing can often lead to another if word is out you are looking. We have to return to Victoria next year, but I'd feel fairly confident that we'd find something else up here on the Cape if we wanted it.

A 4 month sit at a 100 acre Daintree Rainforest wildlife refuge resulted from our membership of Aussie House-sitters. The owners found our 'bio' & contacted us.

The 'key', I reckon is to travel slow, with an ear to the ground& with the flexibility & preparedness to change plans if something interesting comes up, with a 'plan b ' if it doesnt. This year will be our 5th wet season, & we haven't yet needed to fall back on our plan b. (Head south to drier parts if we don't get a roof over our heads somewhere interesting). ie. Putting yourself in the position optimistically. Arranging things like this ahead of time (eg. had loads of folk contact me to say they couldn't do Moreton this year, but wanted to do it next year) whilst not impossible, generally isn't that likely. Most folk in remote areas will say "Come & see us when you're up this way).

It is true to say though that my having kept the blog of our travels & 'sits' over the past few years is a very helpful tool - contacting places & providing the links to our previous experience in 'remote wet season sitting tells folks we are not 'tyre kicking dreamers, & believe me there are a lot of those around! I posted the Moreton ad on 10 FB groups & drew over 4000 visits to our blog. Of all the posts I saw on the groups resulting from that there would have only been a handful who were realistic. Not surprising that many station owners etc prefer the greater certainty of folk they can meet first.

Thanks for the detailed informative reply Cuppa. To date I have avoided joining Facebook but lately have been thinking of relenting.

If you wish to join Farcebook on the quiet, create a web based email account with non-traceable names for everything that appears in the public domain. Use that to open your account and again do not insert anything traceable that will appear on the public record. (You will have to insert things that will trace back to you when signing up but they do not appear in the Facebook pages for all and sundry to view.)

If you are careful not to reveal the true you and use fictional names, you can still claim to be one of the 40% that do not have an account (at least in your name.)