Clowning Around

I would be a lie to say all we do is work because alhough it takes up most of the time, what is the point in earning money if you don't use it. It wasn't long after we got here that we found out that Gippsland (the area we are in) and the Yarra Valley (40mins away) are wine regions and we hit the road with Inza to check out the cheese and wine.
The first winery we went to was very commercial and busy and though we found it very pretty the vibe was somewhat lacking and we stuck to small cellar doors after it. Train track was my favourite and the boys seemed to enjoy the wine (I volunteered to be designated driver for this trip). The lady doing the tasting was really friendly and chatted to us telling us about the winery not excluding the story of the moose head mounted on the wall that had a name and a monalisa eye following thing going. At one winery we bumped into ex-South Africans which was so great. I think the best part was hearing people talk normally...accent free...ahhh :) We chatted to them for ages and tasted all the wine and when we left the wine maker mentioned tht next time we come to taste we should bring our dogs and a barbeque!! I thought this was great!! The other winning point on that winery was that I was given apple juice to sip at but this turned out to start a whole conversation on pasturising. See I have to explain that by this point Inza had decided it was necessary to spice up the story that I was not tasting because I was driving and change it to a case of pregnancy. Yip, he told every wine cellar door that I was pregnant with a huge smile and watched me try defend it. By the end of the week he had told everyone on the farm and I had the paddock manager telling everyone to be nice to me and not upset the baby to everyone's hilarity!
My favourite stop overall was the dairy and we got to delve into top notch goats cheese. James was hesistant since he has not liked goats cheese before but we all enjoyed it and we ended up buying a dill cheve. The dairy's famed cheese is one covered in ash and after initial hesitation we decided we were pleasantly surprised at how nice it was!
Our last fun stop was a badly timed chocolateriere and icecreamery.... the weekend before easter! Crowds aside we ate free chocolate chips and stoked up on easter surprises and chocolate tea (which i do not recomend!!).

 The next big event was the circus. After bugging a person in a small newspaper type shop she eventually gave me a What's on in West Gippsland newspaper and I left thinking it was going to be useless. Fortuanately I read it through and found out that Australia's biggest circus was putting on shows just an hour from the farm. Trying to get the others excited and keen to join us we found out that Phillip had acually worked for Silvers Circus at the end of last year, we couldn't believe it!! He managed to get us free tickets and the whole crew of us set off to Morwell.

It was fantastic!! I loved every second and got more excited than most of the kids that were there! The drinks and snacks were sold to you by the performers and so you could meet them at the beggining and interval. I hate the magician that disappears girls and cuts people through with poles. I just dont see how its possible and its so annoying!!! My favourite was possibly the girl with the hoola hoops... probably the act I least expected to love. She was amazing and had the crowd all excited. The juggler was incredible and even though he dropped a few things nobody could help but be in awe! The clowns were entertaining and they even had a footy match done by dogs with balloons. The tightrope walker is scary and although she wasnt leagues above the ground I kept tensing. The most amazing part was when she stopped and put point shoes on and pottered back across the rope... these people are not normal and at the same time so incredible! I thought Debs would have loved seeing that! Their main act is a large ball (not large enough if you ask me) that motorbikers ride around each other in at high speed and by some miracle dont hit each other! We were allowed to take photos but I've tried to get a few off their facebook page for you :)

At the end we spoke to the main magician in charge who told us there were going to be looking for new people to join the set up team and I nearly joined right there and then. Leave potatoes behind and join the circus!!!

1 Potato, 2 Potato, 3 Potato. and so many more...

Ok so what you may have been waiting for is what exactly we do all day and claim to be such hard work. We are picking potatoes on the Pike farm where, unlike Africa where spud variety means washed or unwashed, there are several potato varieties with funny names like Harmony and Nadine.

The group is split into 2 groups: the shed workers and the pickers.

The pickers:

These are the people that pick the potatoes up off the floor in the paddocks and put them into buckets. The buckets are then emptied into bins which are each half a tonne like the one I am pouring potatoes into in the photo. Each bin is worth $30 to a picker so that makes $60 per tonne picked. The fastest pickers can get up to averaging a bin per hour or just under an hour. The starting time is sunrise (puke) and you finish when the potatoes are picked which can be any time from 1 - 5:30pm, Monday to Saturday. You work at your own pace and take breaks when you want to.

Like everything there are techniques to learn as you go along and methods to choose to suit you. So it is your lucky day as I will now give you some insight into the tricks of the trade ;) James is showing the main choice positions for picking in the photos below:

The fast pickers pick like this first photo but as you can imagine it is not easy on the back after a while and standing up becomes not an option. I try to pick like this mainly because the other options kill my obviously weak knees. I do have a tired position though... This position has it's fail points though, for instance it pulls your shirt up at the back and if you unaware of the strength of the aussie sun on your behind you end up looking like me.. :( It peeled twice and was sore for 2 weeks... hard lesson learnt and has not been repeated!

Kneel next to the bucket and chuck them in is option 2. It is very slow and you get really muddy but gets your off your feet for a few minutes and can relieve the back slightly! It does however mean that the bucket hits the side of your leg and if you bruise as easily as I do you leg ends up looking like the next photo haha ;/

The last main option is to sit on the bucket, this being James's choice position. It is moderately fast and doesn't hurt your back too much but it's rough on the knees and inside of your legs. I gave up on this position early and didn't take the bruise photo soon enough after it happened but if you look close you can see a pretty purple pattern. James doesn't seem to bruise at all and can mission quickly so :)

The paddock starts off looking like the first photo and ends looking like the second!

We start off looking all cheerful and cool in our new steel capped work boots and end up looking like James here...

Is it all bad? Nah this is our view on the way to work :)

The Shed workers:

This is quality and size sorting centre. They start at 7:30 roughly and work till 5. There are 2 15min breaks (usually about half an hour) and a half hour lunch break (at least 45mins ;) ). They earn $20/hr for their 9 hour days, 4 days a week and a half day Friday. The farm is mainly a seed potato producer and the larger potatoes that don't fit the seed regulations go to market. The big potatoes are put on the conveyor belt on top and frot (rotten) ones go done the shute between the workers on each side. They come out at a set pace you have to spot the bad ones and get rid of them fast. The boss comes around and checks on quality so it can be more pressured. It is very monotonous and would be deathly without music but it is good money. It works out the same as picking 6 bins in a day which is probably more than most pickers average. Sage and Leon earn loads more in the field than they would in the shed but it all depends on the person. This job seems easier but trust me it has its difficulties... It is very painful on the neck and you can't stop if you sore or tired. I like it cause it is right near the caravan so I can have tea in the breaks instead of water on the field and toasted sandwiches and 2 min noodles instead of jam sandwhiches ;) On the down side it is a bit soul destroying watching potatoes for 9 hours a day and you always finish after the pickers. I am the chief reserve for packing so if someone is sick or feels like a day in the sun I take their place in the shed!

So that is the sum of it, you can decide on the quality of job now that you have the full specs. We are getting fitter and starting to enjoy it more (other than the early starts which James and I will never appreciate ;) ). Who wants to come join??

Meet the Hippies

One of the best parts of doing some travelling is meeting different people and I have found this one of the best parts of this stop. There are 10 of us camping by the shed, most are Germans, one Czeck and an Asian Australian. The youngest is 18 the oldest is 39. We have one lesbian, a couple that arrived in aus together, a married couple (lunatics), a couple that met here at the farm and a few single guys. Some live in tents some in converted commuter omnibuses and us in our caravan. Where to start hmmm...

Sage is a 39 year old lady who used to work in IT before realising that she never saw the light of day and was missing out on life. She quit her job 2 years ago and got on the harvest trail to meet awesome people and travel around. She is really short and is by far the fastest picker she works faster than James and I put together which we find rather depressing but ya she is a machine on the field.

Phillipp that gave us the job is 20 and is a sound technician and has worked for the circus and toured with a band.

Klara is also 20 and has been on the harvest trail for over a year and a half. She is going back to Germany to start her Social working degree this year.

Inza is 33 and goes back to Czeck republic in 3 weeks unfortunately. He is a Geography teacher mostly junior school though and most recently was teaching in a Motessori school.

We have become friends with one of the farms permanent workers (truck and forklift driver in this season). He is Polish born and lives down the road from the farm with his Aussie fiancee. He calls everyone gangster and he is known as OG or orginal gangster but we found out the truth the OG is actually his fat black and white cat. They are passionate about wine and travel so you can imagine how well we have got on :)

Thats just a highlight but you will meet the others in my stories as we go on :) I think it is absolutely amazing that people from all over the world different goals and histories, different family stories and experiences can all come together to live and work really hard together. It may seem stupid to some people to live, in a tent as most of them do, sharing basic living areas in the middle of nowhere with people you have never met in order to work your arse off all week. To us it is a different perspective, we are sharing experiences of culture and personalities and we are earning money in a way that not only makes you appreciate what you eat all the time but also allows you to travel and see as much as possible. Im not very good at putting into words what it means and how much you gain from it but I think its incredible and I'm so glad to have the opportunity to try it.

Below are photos of what I will always refer to as the shed ie where we cook, eat and  socialise :)

First Job... The Place

Having spent days being told that every job we phoned about had already been given to someone else we became gumtree addicts and sat refreshing the page every few minutes. The one time I refreshed the page an advert came up saying a German guy had a job for someone that could give him a lift to the farm. I threw the phone at James and he gave this guy a ring straight away. The reply was one of surprise when we said we were phoning about the advert on gumtree... all he could say was I just put that ad up right now! Chatting later he claims everyone it was a mere 30 seconds from posting to recieving the call!! A couple of days later we hit the road for our first long trip in the caravan.

Max speed 80km/h unless attempting to go uphill in which case we would be lucky to get to 40km/h! The car and caravan both did well (except for a minor window flying open crisis fixed by being boppered up with fishing line ;) ) and a beautiful trek through the yarra valley later we arrived in Neerim South where we met up with Phillipp and Klara and headed to the farm. They seemed great and we were just relieved that we had made it onto a farm and had a source on income.

So where is it and what is it like... It is east of melbourne on a farm owned by the Pike's near Neerim Junction. We work in the paddocks of potatoes but the travelling workers take residence aroudn the sorting shed which is in the middle of the farm. We were a bit anxious to find out that we could not attach power and water to our caravan and that to get those we would need to go into the shed. It is still frustrating to know a bit of the potential of living in a caravan and not be able to make the most of it. It is however much better than we thought it would be because we socialise with the others and it is a great vibe in the shed at night. The down sides are the really small space that we all share and the toilet in the tin shed, but most difficult aspect goes to the very average shower that is only sometimes hot is also half way across the farm :( Shopping is done mostly at Neerim South which is a small town about 10km away. Big shopping days take us about 35km away to Warragul.

Anyway turns out it's a really beautiful area with enough to do to keep us busy and happy when we have time off :)