We Are Famers: Diary 1

We are farmers! dum de dum da dum dum dum....

Howdy ya'll. Another blog all up in ya facceee! As i previously stated - i will be posting a blog every month of my week by week diary. I got a feeling ill have a lot to say for the first couple weeks, then the next few might get a bit samey. But all i can do is speak from the heart and be truely honest blog fans....

WEEK 1:

So, week 1 - ive already explained our first impressions of our new place. We came here and settled in pretty well. The welsh guy, Sam, who we share a cabin with was going pub. So he offered to pick us up some Strongbows from the bottle shop. We sat around having a few drinks, and meeting the people we were gonna be living amoungst and working with. Most of the Brits here work at the same farm we are - Mackays. Apparently its a really good farm to work for. Some of the other farms in the area treat people like poo. So we were lucky. The guys here seemed really cool. We even met a guy from Edgeware. So that was a bit of a shocker. Small world blog fans...

We woke up for work the next day at 5am. We were told we were doing "stringing" on our first day. We thought we were employed to do kerosening, but whatever... Stringing is basically tieing the banana trees back to a tree behind them, so they dont fall in heavy weather etc. Its not so bad for a first job.... It didnt feel like a farm. It felt more like a jungle. There were spiders EVERYWHAH. But I started to get a bit used to them... Kinda.. I just gotta watch out for the dangerous ones.

It rained a lot the first week. The mud here is like a red clay, and our clothes got really shitty and our feet got really wet. Even in wellies. Showers become a chour at the end of the day. Takes a good 30mins of scrubbing to get even remotely clean. The showers and toilets are outside, so Cat has to run the gauntlet of frogs in the evening. Shes scared of them and asks me to scare them off... Some times i do... but some times i dont blog fans ;)

We stayed working together outside in the paddocks all week. Its rare for girls to stay outside. They usually have the sorting jobs in the shed. I started to eat bananas that had fallen whilst working. I dont even like bananas. But sometimes when your damp, tierd and hungry, and you see the perfect banana, glowing golden like it was grown in the garden of edan. You just gotta appreciate it and munch that bad boy down.

At the end of the week we had a little party and some drinks. You gotta do it. Not much else to do here. The party got shut down by Dhillon the owner. So i stayed up drinking on my own and watched Chelsea beat Newcastle 3-0. Good first week.

WEEK 2:

At the beginning of week 2, I was mostly humping. But enough about my personal life blog fans!.... ha, only joking. "Humping" is when the bananas get cut off the trees and you gotta carry them on your shoulders to the truck. It wasnt easy. The bananas were heavy and hard. My shoulders were brusied, but everyone said youll get used to it eventually. Cat started off in the shed with the other girls sorting. We both then moved on to doing some weeding half way through the week. I met the big boss guy, and he seemed to hate me straight away. I think there's something about my body language and look, that makes all authority figures hate me. It was all a misunderstanding though. I was doing what i was asked to do, so... sekkle ya batty... That same guy later took me and Cat aside to start the kerosening. Thats where we inject tree stumps with kerosene to stop them growing. When he was walking us through it, it got stupidly innuendous... "Stick it in, pull it half way out, then squirt". "Stick it deep, right in the middle." "Squirt as much as you can." "Watch it doesnt squirt in your face or eyes." Haha.... I so wanted to scream THATS WHAT SHEEEE SAAAAIIDDD!! But couldnt as it was the grumpy boss man. Cat made it worse by saying "Its all in the wrist action really isnt it".... Classic Cat...

Pumping that kerosene all day gave me some messed up dreams. I have about 20 a night. I must be coming home high. We might be doing this permanently now for a long time. So i could see it as im getting paid to get high.

Still no spider bites, and i aint seen a snake. I think people need to make less fuss of spiders and snakes in Oz, and focus on the real problem - flies. Aaghhh so many!! Every lunch time they just gang rape every hole in your body. Mozzie bites too. Our legs look like Nic-Naks. But its a way of life here. Cats not coping with the seclusion as well as me. She cant chill. Always trying to make plans for the evenings and weekends. She wants to buy a car so we can drive places. But im just here to get our 2nd year visa and save money. So keep posted on car news blog fans.... We had a leaving party for a girl called Clare. We had a big bonfire - a lot of talking, drinking and smoking.... A big Fijian guy called Izzy held my hand, and told me im a lovely man....

WEEK 3:

Week 3 started strangely. Two new Welsh boys arrived, Ryan and Toby. We introduced ourselves and had the usual "Where you been, where you going" conversation. They had been staying in Melbourne for 2 months. We told them we stayed with some friends in St Kilda. They jokinly said "they aint the same friends as ours are they?" As a joke coz they were a couple from London as well. "What are your mates names?", "Oh these guys we know from home, Rob and Nancy". "No way!! Rob and Nancy!?" Fenton blog fans. It happened again... First we found out Andy (the aussie we met in brazil) lived in the same block as Rob and Nancy, and now this. Small world blog fans, small world...

Cats been flirting and making weekend plans with others. She managed to get the Italian boys we work with to take her to Cooktown for shopping. She stocked up on food and drink whilst i went for a little bike ride to the pub with Sam and Charlotte. Its only 10km away(!).... Was good though.

At work we continued with the kerosening. Walking around like The Ghostbusters with our proton packs on. Starting to get a bit sick of the kerosene smell, and our hands really hurt from the constant pumping of the handles. Its hard blog fans. Sometimes you get the kero on your face, then you walk through a thousand spider webs a minute that sick to your face, then your face does its best Niagra Falls impression from the sweat in the sun... DPMO!... Cats got sprayed in her face many times (and at work lol) But her skin is starting to go bad from it. Ive got white bumps on my legs too. Think its both from the kerosene burning, but u can only see mine over the dark tattooed areas of my leg.

One of our supervisors, Chris, made a comment about me and Cat having to keep up with a woman called Clare who we've been kerosening with a bit. He didnt mean much by it, but Cat took it to heart. I think he wants us at the top of our game as we're the main keroseners. But Cat then started to work like a mad man and got annoyed with me coz i wernt keeping up. But i know im going fast, and any faster i wont be doing it right. By friday i was going through them like Terminator, then i see Clare catching up with me... I wanted to turn round at her and shout "Oi! You go back and do that properly yeah!" Its like we were racing, and i was in the fastest car in the world, taking the corners perfectly. There's no way anyone could catch up unless theyve taken a short cut or cut corners... So whatever. Im gonna continue the way i am. Cats just scared coz shes heard about people on other farms being sacked...

Not much else has happened. Cat still wants to get a car. She thinks it will give us things to do on the weekends - and i just dont want the hassle. I just wanna work weekdays, relax weekends, and look forward to having fun after our farming is over. Time is flying fast so far. We're already a quarter of the way through! Starting to miss people from home now. Think routine and work does that to you more :p

WEEK 4:

If you havent noticed, i start my weekly diary from the weekends. Its friday, and im playing drinking games with beer, cider and fortified wine. I dont know what "fortified" means - but it should probably die.

Saturday was good. I got out of Lakeland for the first time since arriving. A German girl called Jessica took me, Cat and Charlotte to Cooktown just to get out and do a food shop. The town was nice. Really small, but compared to Lakeland i almost got a nose bleed from the metropolis. We went IGA and bought 2 vodkas, 2 wines, 2 Passion Pops, Captain Morgans, and a box of goon. Justin Case.... Later that day i watched the Chelsea v Everton game on my own with goon. Downed a cup of it and put it on my head when Terry scored the winner ;) On Sunday a load of us hiked a hill near where we live. Was pretty dangerous. Could of died by crocodile, spider, wild boar, snakes, or being molested by a crazy redneck. It was a bit like Blair Witch / Hills Have Eyes / Anaconda. Red Back spiders and snakes have been spotted at work recently too. So we had to be ninja about it... Spoiler alert - we survived...

Monday was back to work... Was shit... But we stayed at that Jess girls house just to see her place and she made T-Bone steak for us. Tuesday was even shitter than Monday. Things were going wrong all day, and Cat keeps rushing the job to make it even less enjoyable. Dunno why. This job is gonna be bigger than our 3 months. Its continuous. We cant win.... My kerosene gun was jamming a lot. I had some Akira Tetsuo, TekkenKinkreet Minotour, M. Bison physco power moments. Broke my kerosene gun and kicked a few trees... When i came back with a new and better gun, a wasp stung my eye. So there was no winning on that day. Wednesday i woke up to make toast. None of the toasters worked. After trying one in a different socket, i got it to turn on. I put the bread in and went to the toilet. All the boys ones were occupied, so i went in the girls. The light didnt turn on in there so i pissed all on their floor. When i got back to my toast, the toaster popped it out so hard, it landed straight on the filthy floor.... So i had no toast.

After that the week got better as it went along. Our hands hurt a lot now though. Can barely make a fist or grip anything. Also Cats got some sort of infected arm pit. We think its an ingrown hair.... Its butterz so i want nothing to do with it.

A load of us went out on Thursday for drinks down the local pub. 3 Italian boys we worked with were leaving the farm, and it got a bit messy. Everyone got drunk even though we had work at 6:30 the next day. Was good though. Got driven home by someone who was probably 40 times over the limit. But luckily theres not many things you can crash into in Lakeland.... So we survived again. Usually Fridays are half days and we finish at 12pm. But nearly everyone got sent home early coz they were drunk. Me and Cat however, had to stay on and finish our kerosening. FML....

ANYWAY... THATS ONE MONTH DONE!! It flew by! 2 more months and we're outta here with an extra year visa and some cash to spend. Cant wait to hit the east coast and blow my load.... and my money ;)

I remember my friend Shona telling me "Farm work will be the BEST AND WORST time you ever have in Australia"... I can confirm half of that statement is true blog fans... Just half...

So on that note - Stay sweet blogs fans. Pray for us, and please keep them shorts strapped and super tight!

Peace out Rabbiiiitttt...

Zoooooooopaaaaaaa....

We Are Farmers: Intro

Bloggy oggy wow, wicky icky wow wow!

Calling all civalized people! Farmer Bob is on the job! Im on a farm in the middle of NO WHERE right now. Its cray, like Andy Gray. But ive got an awesome idea to do 4 farming blogs, formatted as a week by week diary, just to give you an insight on this crazy life i be living. I think my last blog took you up to Adelaide. Seems a LONG time ago. But farming isnt handed to you on a silver plate with a christmas bow blog fans. So ill let you know how it went down.....

We needed farm work asap, to qualify for our 2nd year visa. We were aproaching our 9th month in Aus fast, and we needed to complete 3 months of farm work before one year was up. Our friends Shona, Gemma and Sara did their farm work in Tully. Its a good place to go as bananas grow there all year round, and they always need backpackers. So after ringing around various farms from all over the country we decided to go to Tully. To a workers accomodation called Hotel Tully. We got on a flight from Adelaide to Cairns, and when we arrived it was PISSING down! Aparently a cyclone was predicted and it felt like we were in it. We had to get a Greyhound bus from Cairns to Tully, and we waited under shelter. The bus driver arrived, then decided he needed a break, then came back.....over an HOUR later. We were gonna complain, but once we arrived in Tully we didnt care. We were warned Tully was tiny, and it def lived up to the hype. It had one supermarket, one main street, a couple charity shops, a couple hostels, and a big golden welly boot. The boot represented the fact Tully has the highest annual rain fall in Australia. And we were witnessing it first hand. We checked into our hostel and put our name on the waiting list for work. We were told that some people had been waiting a couple weeks for work, and we didnt have that long to wait. We had 2 weeks before our very latest starting date. SO, to cut a long story short - we asked about work at Banana Barracks (where our friends stayed). The woman there said there wasnt much on, I told her our friends recommended them to us, she took my name down, she got me a job the next day. I was pleased with this - (natually) so i went to get a load of clothes from a charity shop and some welly boots. Then i got more news from Paula (the woman at Banana Barracks) she said me AND Cat could get work, if we traveled to a place called Lakeland. Work for girls in Tully was even slower than the guys, so we took it. Paula warned us "If you think this is the middle of NO WHERE, you just wait..." So we made up our mind, and arranged our trip to Lakeland.

Before we left we were able to get a taste of Tully nightlife at the weekend. OMG shiz hit the fan blog fans. It went from a grandma's village to..... Magalauf. Was cray. Like Andy Gray. We went swimming in the local pool the next day to cure hangovers and got a bit upset we were leaving. But we knew we had to take this opporunity. We left later that day, in heavy rain (natually) The bus was late again, but this time coz some boom gate to the village didnt open. So a policeman escorted us to where the bus was. We went to Cairns and had one more evening with Nats who was starting her east coast trip from there. We had Chinese food... We love Chinese food, you know that its true. Plus a drink, then we said goodbye to Nats and got a few hours sleep before getting a little shuttle bus in the morning.

We arrived in Turalba Workers Accomodation... Middle of NO WHERE!! Its basically a load of caravan type cabins, set in a field. But its cool! Me and Cat got our own room with wardrobe. We share our cabin with another nice couple (a welsh guy and essex girl) and theres our own fridge and we have a tv. We have foxtel tv with a lot of channels, a good kitchen, mini gym, and everything else is cool. Better than a dorm and sharing 2 hobs in a kitchen with 60 others like Tully. But as we're in the middle of NO WHERE, we have a tuck shop that we buy our goods from. The owners drive to the nearest town (Cooktown), which is a hour away, stock up, then re-sell to us for a little more. Lakelands "town centre" consists of a petrol pump and a cafe.... Yeah....

We had no signal on our optus phones here. So we had to get a new one. It was Cats idea. Believe it or not, i liked the feeling of being in the middle of NO WHERE, and just being in the zone. I know if i get on to facebook or had enough data for youtubing, i would loose a lot of time and precious sleep. Plus i have nothing much to say or post on facebook. Maybe a status saying "saw a banana today" or instagram a picture of...... bananas?....

Anyway, work has started well enough. I was originally planning to write part of the blog along with our first week diary of working. But I think this blog is long enough isn't it blog fans.

So keep posted for that diary of our first month. Working in the middle of NOOO WHERRREEE!!!..

Until then, keep them shorts tiiiiight!!!

Zooooopa!!