After requests, pleas and downright threats to update my blog, here I finally am!
Migrating to the country
With it being so hard to find work in Melbourne, we headed to Shepparton, a country town in Victoria - about 2 or 3 hours from Melbourne - to do some fruitpicking a few weeks ago. Driving through the aussie countryside, I'm full of awe how the early settlers managed to cope here. After months on end being ferried down here on a ship, they then had to trek across miles and miles of dry sweltering hot landscape and set up home in the most random of places - OK, if there was gold in the vicinity that wouldn't make it so random. The countryside is beautiful and with the australian sun, its colours are amazing. But there's still miles and miles of nothing!
Anyway so, we arrived in Shepparton and were told we could get work pearpicking in an even more little town, Kyabram, about half an hour away. That's when the country-phobia so many of us city people are afflicted with started to kick in... Everything seemed so far apart, no road signs, no people about to ask for directions, no cool shops, no sign of things to do.... Argh!!!! We managed to find a campside after much difficulty, 17 U-turns and a barrage of cursing. It was a nice one in which we got our own bathroom. As other campers all had caravans with kitchens, we were able to adopt the camp kitchen as our own and duly filled the fridge and cupboards with our stuff. So far, so good...
The next morning, we then started our pearpicking... What happens is you're assigned to an orchard. A farmhand drives these huge wooden boxes to the orchard and you just pick and fill these boxes. First, the picking seemed easy and we were all 'oh this isn't so bad!', picking away enthusiastically. But the reality of fruitpicking set in when we realised just how long it took to fill one box - about an hour - and you got paid less than $30 after tax for the box.... We persevered and got seven boxes done before going home to die from the heat.
After a hard day's work, one wants something to look forward to in the evenings. Unfortunately, nice as it was, our campside didn't have other fruitpickers. Everything shuts down in Kyabram after 6pm. After two days of fruitpicking and sitting around at the campsite, I hotfooted it back to Melbourne for the weekend. Yep, I'm a wimp - blame my parents for not exposing me to the realities of the country when I was a kid...
Pearpicking goes pearshaped
After some city oxygen I was able to go back to Kyabram the following week. But there was no more work at the orchard we were on so we went to another orchard near Shepparton. That's when we realised we had it easy in the first orchard... The new farmer had a particular thing about... pear stalks... It was really hard to pick his pears without pulling off the stalks so our first box had more than a few stalkless pears. But pear stalks, according to him, are what decides consumers when they go to buy pears. Holding up two pears, one with and one without a stalk, he asked us in the most patronising manner which we'd buy... Grrrr! So we filled two more boxes taking care to ensure that most of them had stalks. When the farmer came back he poked around and, of course, had to find the few without stalks and threatened to fire us the next day if we didn't improve. Fired from a pear farm - now that's something to add to the CV.
Went to a different campsite that evening (the first being too far away) and were berated by the campowner, a short plump countrywoman, for... 'exposing' ourselves... It transpired that walking back to one's car from the showers in one's towels was to expose oneself. So we left...
Having nowhere to stay that night, we sneaked into a park, planning to set up camp next to a campsite... But minutes after we arrived at our dark secluded spot, we discovered we hadn't been so discreet when a park ranger appeared and told us we could incur a $250 fine if we put up our tent... But, were we to do the same 20 minutes walk away, it'd be fine... Could anything else go wrong?!
The next morning, tired and grumpy, we got up and went back to 'Stalked Pears Inc' to see how we went... Now, let me rewind a bit. The previous day, I drove a tractor!!!! Unlike the first farm, on this one, we had to drive the boxes to orchards ourselves. Much to Treacy's astonishment, I had no idea how to drive a tractor but it was easy enough once the farmer showed me although the others would tell you I drove it too fast. It's actually good fun!! Anyway, back to our second day, the tractor broke down just before we got to our orchard (in my defence, I wasn't driving it) and we were stranded for more than an hour waiting for someone to come and fix it - using the time as an opportunity to take photos of ourselves pearpicking, driving tractors etc! We then spent a few hours picking but realised that while we were able to pick pears along with their stalks, it was so so so slow and the boxes were filling up so slowly it was almost as though they were being emptied. After 2 boxes, we quit. From being all narky with us the first day, the farmer seemed disappointed to see us go, asking me whether I had a boyfriend back home..! A bachelor all the way out in the middle of a pear farm was bound to be disappointed to see three girls who 'expose' themselves (Shepparton's a small town - he was bound to have heard) leave. But, I can tell you, we were very glad to see the back of him!
But that wasn't the end of our run of bad luck... At the petrol station, Michelle decided to slam the door on my finger... OK, OK, OK, it was my fault for resting my hand in not a very sensible place... Worse than the pain was the shock of having my finger completely stuck in a door and being unable to do anything - it was horrible. But Michelle noticed quickly and freed me and we quickly went to the hospital where I was told it wasn't broken but would be very bruised. Left with a huge bandage, relieved that I wasn't surrounded by Auslan (Australian sign language) users as it requires two hands - not very practical when one of your fingers has a huge bandage.
Canberra - 'Meeting Place'
Back when Australia got its independence from the UK, Melbourne and Sydney were roughly the same size and its inhabitants both laid claim to the title of capital of Australia... Rather than battle it out, they decided that this tiny tiny village in the middle of the mountains would become Australia's capital. It was named Canberra, which is Aboriginal for meeting place.
Because Melburnians complained that this village was in New South Wales (where Sydney is), a line was drawn around this village and the land within called 'Australia Capital Territory'. So even though ACT is in NSW, the NSW state has no authority over it. Compromises you'd expect to come out of the schoolyard...! But if it works, it works...
So, 100 years on, Canberra remains Australia's capital but that's it. It's not the economic, artistic, cultural, sporting or otherwise centre of Australia... It's simply where the federal government meets and where national politics is conducted. As it was just a village when bequeathed with the title of national capital, Canberra had to be built almost from scratch and so is completely planned, making for pretty amazing town planning - but it's still a really boring place. For all its shortfalls however, Canberra has fantastic museums. We went to see the Canberra Museum and Gallery plus both the National Art Gallery and Museum. Also ventured into the Parliament buildings and stopped at the Aboriginal Tent (what they consider to be their 'embassy') so it's worth a visit. Don't plan a week there though!!
Oh, have I mentioned that our means of travelling is by car, a big red station wagon we bought in Melbourne? It was in Canberra that we decided to christian it 'Amaroo', the Aboriginal for 'beautiful place' - because the car brings us to beautiful places (Shepparton excepted).
Sydney
As I write this, we've been in Sydney nearly 2 weeks. Yesterday was spent out at the stunning Blue Mountains, we've crossed Harbour Bridge, from which you can see the Opera House, several times, sunbathed at Bondi Beach, partied at the Mardi Gras parade, had coffee in very cool Newtown, browsed around Paddington Market, checked out some of the museums and the Rocks area (old Sydney). We're planning to leave in a few days to check out the NSW and Victorian coasts before arriving in Melbourne for the Commonwealth Games and Paddy's Day celebrations.
Just in case I don't update this before then - a very Happy Paddy's Day!!!!!
Love Cat xxxxxx
Migrating to the country
With it being so hard to find work in Melbourne, we headed to Shepparton, a country town in Victoria - about 2 or 3 hours from Melbourne - to do some fruitpicking a few weeks ago. Driving through the aussie countryside, I'm full of awe how the early settlers managed to cope here. After months on end being ferried down here on a ship, they then had to trek across miles and miles of dry sweltering hot landscape and set up home in the most random of places - OK, if there was gold in the vicinity that wouldn't make it so random. The countryside is beautiful and with the australian sun, its colours are amazing. But there's still miles and miles of nothing!
Anyway so, we arrived in Shepparton and were told we could get work pearpicking in an even more little town, Kyabram, about half an hour away. That's when the country-phobia so many of us city people are afflicted with started to kick in... Everything seemed so far apart, no road signs, no people about to ask for directions, no cool shops, no sign of things to do.... Argh!!!! We managed to find a campside after much difficulty, 17 U-turns and a barrage of cursing. It was a nice one in which we got our own bathroom. As other campers all had caravans with kitchens, we were able to adopt the camp kitchen as our own and duly filled the fridge and cupboards with our stuff. So far, so good...
The next morning, we then started our pearpicking... What happens is you're assigned to an orchard. A farmhand drives these huge wooden boxes to the orchard and you just pick and fill these boxes. First, the picking seemed easy and we were all 'oh this isn't so bad!', picking away enthusiastically. But the reality of fruitpicking set in when we realised just how long it took to fill one box - about an hour - and you got paid less than $30 after tax for the box.... We persevered and got seven boxes done before going home to die from the heat.
After a hard day's work, one wants something to look forward to in the evenings. Unfortunately, nice as it was, our campside didn't have other fruitpickers. Everything shuts down in Kyabram after 6pm. After two days of fruitpicking and sitting around at the campsite, I hotfooted it back to Melbourne for the weekend. Yep, I'm a wimp - blame my parents for not exposing me to the realities of the country when I was a kid...
Pearpicking goes pearshaped
After some city oxygen I was able to go back to Kyabram the following week. But there was no more work at the orchard we were on so we went to another orchard near Shepparton. That's when we realised we had it easy in the first orchard... The new farmer had a particular thing about... pear stalks... It was really hard to pick his pears without pulling off the stalks so our first box had more than a few stalkless pears. But pear stalks, according to him, are what decides consumers when they go to buy pears. Holding up two pears, one with and one without a stalk, he asked us in the most patronising manner which we'd buy... Grrrr! So we filled two more boxes taking care to ensure that most of them had stalks. When the farmer came back he poked around and, of course, had to find the few without stalks and threatened to fire us the next day if we didn't improve. Fired from a pear farm - now that's something to add to the CV.
Went to a different campsite that evening (the first being too far away) and were berated by the campowner, a short plump countrywoman, for... 'exposing' ourselves... It transpired that walking back to one's car from the showers in one's towels was to expose oneself. So we left...
Having nowhere to stay that night, we sneaked into a park, planning to set up camp next to a campsite... But minutes after we arrived at our dark secluded spot, we discovered we hadn't been so discreet when a park ranger appeared and told us we could incur a $250 fine if we put up our tent... But, were we to do the same 20 minutes walk away, it'd be fine... Could anything else go wrong?!
The next morning, tired and grumpy, we got up and went back to 'Stalked Pears Inc' to see how we went... Now, let me rewind a bit. The previous day, I drove a tractor!!!! Unlike the first farm, on this one, we had to drive the boxes to orchards ourselves. Much to Treacy's astonishment, I had no idea how to drive a tractor but it was easy enough once the farmer showed me although the others would tell you I drove it too fast. It's actually good fun!! Anyway, back to our second day, the tractor broke down just before we got to our orchard (in my defence, I wasn't driving it) and we were stranded for more than an hour waiting for someone to come and fix it - using the time as an opportunity to take photos of ourselves pearpicking, driving tractors etc! We then spent a few hours picking but realised that while we were able to pick pears along with their stalks, it was so so so slow and the boxes were filling up so slowly it was almost as though they were being emptied. After 2 boxes, we quit. From being all narky with us the first day, the farmer seemed disappointed to see us go, asking me whether I had a boyfriend back home..! A bachelor all the way out in the middle of a pear farm was bound to be disappointed to see three girls who 'expose' themselves (Shepparton's a small town - he was bound to have heard) leave. But, I can tell you, we were very glad to see the back of him!
But that wasn't the end of our run of bad luck... At the petrol station, Michelle decided to slam the door on my finger... OK, OK, OK, it was my fault for resting my hand in not a very sensible place... Worse than the pain was the shock of having my finger completely stuck in a door and being unable to do anything - it was horrible. But Michelle noticed quickly and freed me and we quickly went to the hospital where I was told it wasn't broken but would be very bruised. Left with a huge bandage, relieved that I wasn't surrounded by Auslan (Australian sign language) users as it requires two hands - not very practical when one of your fingers has a huge bandage.
Canberra - 'Meeting Place'
Back when Australia got its independence from the UK, Melbourne and Sydney were roughly the same size and its inhabitants both laid claim to the title of capital of Australia... Rather than battle it out, they decided that this tiny tiny village in the middle of the mountains would become Australia's capital. It was named Canberra, which is Aboriginal for meeting place.
Because Melburnians complained that this village was in New South Wales (where Sydney is), a line was drawn around this village and the land within called 'Australia Capital Territory'. So even though ACT is in NSW, the NSW state has no authority over it. Compromises you'd expect to come out of the schoolyard...! But if it works, it works...
So, 100 years on, Canberra remains Australia's capital but that's it. It's not the economic, artistic, cultural, sporting or otherwise centre of Australia... It's simply where the federal government meets and where national politics is conducted. As it was just a village when bequeathed with the title of national capital, Canberra had to be built almost from scratch and so is completely planned, making for pretty amazing town planning - but it's still a really boring place. For all its shortfalls however, Canberra has fantastic museums. We went to see the Canberra Museum and Gallery plus both the National Art Gallery and Museum. Also ventured into the Parliament buildings and stopped at the Aboriginal Tent (what they consider to be their 'embassy') so it's worth a visit. Don't plan a week there though!!
Oh, have I mentioned that our means of travelling is by car, a big red station wagon we bought in Melbourne? It was in Canberra that we decided to christian it 'Amaroo', the Aboriginal for 'beautiful place' - because the car brings us to beautiful places (Shepparton excepted).
Sydney
As I write this, we've been in Sydney nearly 2 weeks. Yesterday was spent out at the stunning Blue Mountains, we've crossed Harbour Bridge, from which you can see the Opera House, several times, sunbathed at Bondi Beach, partied at the Mardi Gras parade, had coffee in very cool Newtown, browsed around Paddington Market, checked out some of the museums and the Rocks area (old Sydney). We're planning to leave in a few days to check out the NSW and Victorian coasts before arriving in Melbourne for the Commonwealth Games and Paddy's Day celebrations.
Just in case I don't update this before then - a very Happy Paddy's Day!!!!!
Love Cat xxxxxx
posted by Cathy Heffernan | 7:30 a.m.
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