If you want to stay in Australia for a second year working holiday, you’ll have to do your 88 days of regional work. In the 88 days diaries I tell the story of my three months of farm work on a cherry orchard. I worked out in the fields as a farm hand before working in the packing shed during the cherry season. Read about what I think, experience and explore, from eccentric farmers to new skills.
After the disaster last week, there was another day of quad bikes. This time I got to drive together with another girl working at the farm. After being stuck all the time I was slightly nervous when we were explained how to work the bike. Luckily for us the practice run was easy and for the first few days we were working flat terrain. Again we had to put fertilizer on the plants. It started out quite relaxed, cruising around on the quad, but quickly it got quite boring. It wasn’t like we were racing around the property, our average speed was 4 km/h!
On Wednesday the rain started. It started slowly right after lunch. Since there were just a few drops we decided to keep going in our ponchos. Then it started pouring and we raced back to the shed. Someone had to pick us up from there, but our phones weren’t working for some reason. After half an hour of waiting in the cherry middle of nowhere someone showed up anyway.
The next day it rained even more. For me this meant I had to be standby. All day I was waiting for the farmer to barge in, but nothing happened until the day after. I had to clean up the packing shed. It is a huge space full of equipment I don’t know anything about. So how do I know what is rubbish and what is actually an important piece that got lost in the piles of crap? I kept sweeping the floor, but the sand seemed to procreate. Whatever I scooped up came back times three.
With my claustrophobia cleaning the shed wasn’t my favourite job. I had to crawl underneath, over and in a machine. I felt like I was in a cave crawling over obstacles to get last year’s cherries out of it. My boss seemed to enjoy this a lot. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he lacks social skills. He is always short with people and I was even afraid to ask him what to do next. This is the kind of boss that makes you feel bad for taking your well-deserved lunch break. I hate working with him. How can a farm owned by such a man be filled with such nice other people? I don’t understand how they do it.