Week 1 - Sydney
So after a nice 23hr flight we have arrived in Sydney see some photos below. We are not going to go into everything because we have emailed most of our experiences already. Tomorrow we are picking up a hire car to drive 8 hrs north to Lismore which is by Byron Bay, will need to sleep in car overnight and hopefully buy our van on Saturday. Drank way to much Goon last night with some Dutch guys which was funny so struggling a bit today. Will update when we get the van on the weekend.
Week 2 - Getting the van
So week 2 getting the van, we picked up the hire car in Sydney and it was a bit stressful as any damage to the car and you had to pay $3300.00 upfront regardless of fault until any claims were settled then you might get your money back . Luckily Iliana drove otherwise I may of stuffed it in some ones rear and we started our 9hr journey north towards Wardell.
The journey was a bit boring cruising at 100km/hr,it felt like you could run faster but the speed limits are low here and there are cameras and average speed camera s everywhere. The scenery up pacific highway 1 was scenic at times and the trees look like they belong back when the dinosaurs were around its odd not to recognise your surroundings, it looks completely different.
On the way up, we phoned the guy who we were buying the van from to let him know we would arrive at about 8pm, he said that we could stay at his, as he had a three bedroom house, and it would be better than staying at the roadside or a motel. We thought it was a nice gesture and said we would stay and finally we arrived ‘to the middle of nowhere’ – Wardell at about 8.30pm.
It turns out that it wasn’t really a three bedroom house, more like a three bedroom caravan building on steroids and the bloke we met was a bit – let’s say “agricultural”. He was a friendly, if not odd, chap who Iliana reckons smelt of booze when we arrived and he lived by himself. We sat outside the font on the porch area chatting, I drank some of the beer he home-made and it was good. Whilst chatting he started to go on about how lonely it was where he lived and how he needed a woman, and how this had made him think about suicide. It got better when he told us that he had a gun and wanted to use it, but despite all of that I thought he was sound. Iliana wasn’t so sure and was a little scared to say the least.
That night was not the best sleep we have ever had, we could not shut our door which was strange so we kept the light all night as it was so dark without the light, you could not see your hand in front your face. Anyway, the next morning we woke up and we were both still intact which was lucky and we set about looking at the van.
On the pictures, although old the van looked tidy, in real life it was a bag of $hit on the inside with the dated smelly interior and the ripped pop-top, it was a 1981 Nissan Urvan. The only redeeming feature of the vehicle was the engine had recently been overhauled, i.e new HT leads, gasket, hoses etc., etc. and it had a whole years rego (MOT equivalent).
We reluctantly bought the vehicle (didn’t want to get shot etc.) and drove away. ;-)
The first night although not too comfortable in a rest area was ok and we made plans to rip out the carpets and floor and replace with vinyl floor tiles, paint the interior over the dark wood , re-cover the seats in fabric (luckily Ily can sew) and patch the pop-top with funky designs.
The next day we drove into Lismore and got bits and pieces for the van and drove to a rest area called little Italy to start work. Little Italy is a cool little place as they have all this Italian stuff on display and there is a museum etc., but we did not have time for that as we were flat out on the DIY.
That night a thunder storm came in and presented a different problem, we awoke to water dripping on our faces, the sky vent /cover was leaking and water was running inside the van! Off to the local DIY store to buy bitumen paint fast and we patched the roof in the car-park, now we are dry!
As we had left our hire car with the guy we bought the van from, we had to drive back to his to pick it up, we got the car and got out ok without incident and then dropped car off at Lismore airport. Lismore airport was very strange place as we parked the car and walked in to the departure lounge but there was no one there, just a key drop off point - which was a bit annoying as we had been made to rent the car for extra days as we apparently couldn’t drop the car off if the desk was un-manned. The whole place was empty, odd feeling because all of the TV’s and background music was on. Iliana used the toilet there and was a little shocked to find a lizard running around in the toilet!
We had about enough of Lismore area as it was a bit too American small-town looking for us, so we headed approx. 180km south to a rest area. The rest area was tiny but we needed somewhere to stop to do DIY to the van and dispose of our waste carpets etc. without attracting too much attention. Iliana at this point was attracting so many mosquito bites that her leg looked bad, she was itching all over and in some pain, and unfortunately the rest stop was by a creek and swarming with flies. I was a little worried about staying there the night. These fears were realised when I needed to go to the toilet. Should have really taken the hint when we heard a scream from the crapper, but I went in regardless and immediately smelt the awesome fragrance as they were of the “long drop variety”. There were loads of flies and loads of webs but I carried on regardless but attacked by a massive dragon fly. As I danced around to stop it bouncing off my head, I reached for the flush and there it was, a ‘rather’ large spider - so I literally ran outside (not screaming because I am a man, obviously).
Back at the van, we packed up and drove 20km to the next rest stop which had showers and a trucker service station. At this point, we were both at our wits end - then out of the blue loads of small grey Kangaroos came out to eat grass which was a really nice sight and we settled down and chilled out.
The next three days we spent at the service station doing up the van and driving 24km to Woolgoolga town and back. Woolgoolga has an awesome beach with a site right on the beachfront. After the three days of DIY we decided to drive back into the town where I bought a surfboard and we decided to camp up for 2 nights on the really nice site overlooking the beach and sea for only $30 a night. It’s a really nice site with plenty of amenities including a swimming pool, and at long last we are having a good time. We are going to move on tomorrow to Coffs Harbour and stay there for a couple of nights before heading further south to Port Macqurie, we need to suss out where we are going to spend Christmas. We upload a few of our latest shots below. Now we have more free time we can now update this site more often.
Graham and Ily
The journey was a bit boring cruising at 100km/hr,it felt like you could run faster but the speed limits are low here and there are cameras and average speed camera s everywhere. The scenery up pacific highway 1 was scenic at times and the trees look like they belong back when the dinosaurs were around its odd not to recognise your surroundings, it looks completely different.
On the way up, we phoned the guy who we were buying the van from to let him know we would arrive at about 8pm, he said that we could stay at his, as he had a three bedroom house, and it would be better than staying at the roadside or a motel. We thought it was a nice gesture and said we would stay and finally we arrived ‘to the middle of nowhere’ – Wardell at about 8.30pm.
It turns out that it wasn’t really a three bedroom house, more like a three bedroom caravan building on steroids and the bloke we met was a bit – let’s say “agricultural”. He was a friendly, if not odd, chap who Iliana reckons smelt of booze when we arrived and he lived by himself. We sat outside the font on the porch area chatting, I drank some of the beer he home-made and it was good. Whilst chatting he started to go on about how lonely it was where he lived and how he needed a woman, and how this had made him think about suicide. It got better when he told us that he had a gun and wanted to use it, but despite all of that I thought he was sound. Iliana wasn’t so sure and was a little scared to say the least.
That night was not the best sleep we have ever had, we could not shut our door which was strange so we kept the light all night as it was so dark without the light, you could not see your hand in front your face. Anyway, the next morning we woke up and we were both still intact which was lucky and we set about looking at the van.
On the pictures, although old the van looked tidy, in real life it was a bag of $hit on the inside with the dated smelly interior and the ripped pop-top, it was a 1981 Nissan Urvan. The only redeeming feature of the vehicle was the engine had recently been overhauled, i.e new HT leads, gasket, hoses etc., etc. and it had a whole years rego (MOT equivalent).
We reluctantly bought the vehicle (didn’t want to get shot etc.) and drove away. ;-)
The first night although not too comfortable in a rest area was ok and we made plans to rip out the carpets and floor and replace with vinyl floor tiles, paint the interior over the dark wood , re-cover the seats in fabric (luckily Ily can sew) and patch the pop-top with funky designs.
The next day we drove into Lismore and got bits and pieces for the van and drove to a rest area called little Italy to start work. Little Italy is a cool little place as they have all this Italian stuff on display and there is a museum etc., but we did not have time for that as we were flat out on the DIY.
That night a thunder storm came in and presented a different problem, we awoke to water dripping on our faces, the sky vent /cover was leaking and water was running inside the van! Off to the local DIY store to buy bitumen paint fast and we patched the roof in the car-park, now we are dry!
As we had left our hire car with the guy we bought the van from, we had to drive back to his to pick it up, we got the car and got out ok without incident and then dropped car off at Lismore airport. Lismore airport was very strange place as we parked the car and walked in to the departure lounge but there was no one there, just a key drop off point - which was a bit annoying as we had been made to rent the car for extra days as we apparently couldn’t drop the car off if the desk was un-manned. The whole place was empty, odd feeling because all of the TV’s and background music was on. Iliana used the toilet there and was a little shocked to find a lizard running around in the toilet!
We had about enough of Lismore area as it was a bit too American small-town looking for us, so we headed approx. 180km south to a rest area. The rest area was tiny but we needed somewhere to stop to do DIY to the van and dispose of our waste carpets etc. without attracting too much attention. Iliana at this point was attracting so many mosquito bites that her leg looked bad, she was itching all over and in some pain, and unfortunately the rest stop was by a creek and swarming with flies. I was a little worried about staying there the night. These fears were realised when I needed to go to the toilet. Should have really taken the hint when we heard a scream from the crapper, but I went in regardless and immediately smelt the awesome fragrance as they were of the “long drop variety”. There were loads of flies and loads of webs but I carried on regardless but attacked by a massive dragon fly. As I danced around to stop it bouncing off my head, I reached for the flush and there it was, a ‘rather’ large spider - so I literally ran outside (not screaming because I am a man, obviously).
Back at the van, we packed up and drove 20km to the next rest stop which had showers and a trucker service station. At this point, we were both at our wits end - then out of the blue loads of small grey Kangaroos came out to eat grass which was a really nice sight and we settled down and chilled out.
The next three days we spent at the service station doing up the van and driving 24km to Woolgoolga town and back. Woolgoolga has an awesome beach with a site right on the beachfront. After the three days of DIY we decided to drive back into the town where I bought a surfboard and we decided to camp up for 2 nights on the really nice site overlooking the beach and sea for only $30 a night. It’s a really nice site with plenty of amenities including a swimming pool, and at long last we are having a good time. We are going to move on tomorrow to Coffs Harbour and stay there for a couple of nights before heading further south to Port Macqurie, we need to suss out where we are going to spend Christmas. We upload a few of our latest shots below. Now we have more free time we can now update this site more often.
Graham and Ily
Week 3 - We think!
We drove to Coffs Harbour where we stayed at another site near the beach for a couple of nights. The locals pretty much, where ever we have been, are really friendly which seems strange at first coming from England where everyone seems miserable. People are all ways asking where we are from and offering to lend tools and advice which is nice. Coffs harbour was more of a town with shopping malls as opposed to a beach resort so we took the opportunity to look at getting a 12v TV for the van, as did not want to go down the inverter route, as most things out here you can get on 12 volt. We bought a small hi-def flat screen TV and a really powerful aerial which is also powered from the 12 volts. With basic understanding of electrics and seeking advice from Tony, I reckon we could keep the TV on for 2 - 3 hrs then have to drive for an hour to charge battery. We have been on powered sites though for the last week as there are not many free rest areas around these parts.
From Coffs harbour we drove up to Dorigo which is on top of a 'sort-of' mountain (see photos) in order to see Dangar Falls for our 1 year anniversary. The drive up was a nightmare as we have little power and no power steering. Unlucky for Ily, as she drove up, at one point we were going into second gear doing about 20km hr - which pleased the locals no end. Finally we got to the falls and took photos. Strange thing was when we were walking back to our van we heard some shouting, which was a bit odd, but thought nothing of it as we had assumed it was people having a laugh playing in the water below. However, we got to our site in Nambucca Heads and the next day when we turned the TV on, we saw on the news that a young German girl had jumped over the falls into the river below and died. It had apparently happened pretty much when we were there! It made us feel like if we had hung around for another 10 mins we may have seen it / been able to do something, but she probably would have died on impact - but it was still quite saddening.
The following day, which was due to be our last at Nambucca, I tried surfing again and got beaten up by the waves.They look small from the shore but when you get in they are well over your head and they have the power to take you off your feet and push you to the sea bed a little. After receiving my punishment we left the site for a walk along the shore, then drove the van into town to get food (at about 8pm). We left the supermarket, got back into the van and tried to start the engine but the battery was dead !
We were a little confused by this because had been on a powered site for the last week so had not been using the battery. In the end we phoned the NMRA which is our AA / RAC equivalent and they said that because I was not a Australian citizen I could not join or be helped. Luckily the lady on the end of the phone took some pity and arranged for the local man to come out to look at the van - for a small fee of $120! ;-)
He got to us about 11pm and said that our alternator was knackered. I think it had been broken for a while, as the previous owner mentioned that he had replaced the battery. We got escorted back to the camp site and the next morning (today) got jump started on site and drove to the only auto electrical place for miles. Turns out the alternator is broken and it’s also taken out the distributor, luckily the bloke at the garage sourced a reconditioned unit for $175 and distributor at $60 and could supply me with the parts to fit. He only wanted $50 to fit so we are due in tomorrow morning at 8am for him to fit - which means we are waiting on the same site for another day.
Boy its really hot today, about 40 degrees and as we are in a jungle - it’s really humid and there is no wind. Sun is really strong so we are sheltering inside the van trying to keep cool, I am going to have another go in the sea in a bit to try and cool down.
As it’s so hot, there are large lizard things on site walking around, we have taken photos of it below. Tomorrow after we get fixed we are going to head south to Port Macquarie and stay there for a bit. After that we are about 300k from Sydney so will try and find somewhere there for Christmas. After Christmas we need to head south to Victoria to find some seasonal work picking fruit to build up our funds in order to continue our trip all the way to Perth. If we can find work I think we can still make it.
That’s all for now.
Graham and Ily
From Coffs harbour we drove up to Dorigo which is on top of a 'sort-of' mountain (see photos) in order to see Dangar Falls for our 1 year anniversary. The drive up was a nightmare as we have little power and no power steering. Unlucky for Ily, as she drove up, at one point we were going into second gear doing about 20km hr - which pleased the locals no end. Finally we got to the falls and took photos. Strange thing was when we were walking back to our van we heard some shouting, which was a bit odd, but thought nothing of it as we had assumed it was people having a laugh playing in the water below. However, we got to our site in Nambucca Heads and the next day when we turned the TV on, we saw on the news that a young German girl had jumped over the falls into the river below and died. It had apparently happened pretty much when we were there! It made us feel like if we had hung around for another 10 mins we may have seen it / been able to do something, but she probably would have died on impact - but it was still quite saddening.
The following day, which was due to be our last at Nambucca, I tried surfing again and got beaten up by the waves.They look small from the shore but when you get in they are well over your head and they have the power to take you off your feet and push you to the sea bed a little. After receiving my punishment we left the site for a walk along the shore, then drove the van into town to get food (at about 8pm). We left the supermarket, got back into the van and tried to start the engine but the battery was dead !
We were a little confused by this because had been on a powered site for the last week so had not been using the battery. In the end we phoned the NMRA which is our AA / RAC equivalent and they said that because I was not a Australian citizen I could not join or be helped. Luckily the lady on the end of the phone took some pity and arranged for the local man to come out to look at the van - for a small fee of $120! ;-)
He got to us about 11pm and said that our alternator was knackered. I think it had been broken for a while, as the previous owner mentioned that he had replaced the battery. We got escorted back to the camp site and the next morning (today) got jump started on site and drove to the only auto electrical place for miles. Turns out the alternator is broken and it’s also taken out the distributor, luckily the bloke at the garage sourced a reconditioned unit for $175 and distributor at $60 and could supply me with the parts to fit. He only wanted $50 to fit so we are due in tomorrow morning at 8am for him to fit - which means we are waiting on the same site for another day.
Boy its really hot today, about 40 degrees and as we are in a jungle - it’s really humid and there is no wind. Sun is really strong so we are sheltering inside the van trying to keep cool, I am going to have another go in the sea in a bit to try and cool down.
As it’s so hot, there are large lizard things on site walking around, we have taken photos of it below. Tomorrow after we get fixed we are going to head south to Port Macquarie and stay there for a bit. After that we are about 300k from Sydney so will try and find somewhere there for Christmas. After Christmas we need to head south to Victoria to find some seasonal work picking fruit to build up our funds in order to continue our trip all the way to Perth. If we can find work I think we can still make it.
That’s all for now.
Graham and Ily
Week 4 - Christmas
Thanks for all of your blog messages, especially Mr Ward who is quite persistent in his need for us to visit / find donkeys. When we head south and into the more rural parts, we’re sure we can satisfy your request and get you a good few shots to post.
Anyway, as for week four- We were due at the mechanics to fix the alternator on the van at 8:00am and we woke up early and got ready to go. Only thing was we needed a jump start and we had forgotten to arrange it the night before with the camp minders, and their office on site did not open until 9:30am, meaning we would miss or slot at the mechanics. Fortunately, Graham asked a friendly couple a few pitches up on the site and luckily for us they had a set of jump leads. Graham was a bit worried though when speaking to them as this couple, in their early to mid-forties, explained to him that they were a bit frightened by our camper as they had been up all night smoking (Wacky Baccy) and the bloke had felt that the loose tape on our pop-top (blowing in the wind) was talking to him. Plus, the bloke looked like he still had a bit on board. Anyway, he drove his 4x4 up to our van nearly ripping our driver’s side door off in the process and handed us the jump starts. Ily connected the leads on the battery in the van and he connected at them at his end. We were both confused when we saw him put the red connector on the negative on his battery as we had connected it to the positive, but for some reason assumed he knew what he was doing. Ily turned over the engine on his command, but nothing was firing up. All of a sudden, Ily start’s yelling “the battery is on fire” - the smell of burning was immense but luckily it turned out that the small electrical fire only melted some of the heat shielding on the wiring to the battery. The guy was extremely apologetic, and as soon as he realised his mistake put them round the right way. Annoyingly though it blew the fuse in the back of the stereo which charges our sat nav so Graham had to repair that aswell. When we were paying for the alternator repairs, we realised how lucky we had been, as apparently we were the last people the mechanic had accepted work from before the holidays and the last job before he shut up shop ‘till after New Year’s. We managed to get out of Nambucca heads and head south to Port Macquarie with the fixed van.
In Port Macquarie, which was about a 3-4 hour drive (allowing our battery a good charge), we decided to buy a battery pack jump starter which also doubles as a 12v power supply for our TV and aerial when camping on the roadside. It has many nifty gadgets and also charges off our main battery when we drive, so we would have no danger of breaking down like that again. We needed to save cash, so decided to sleep in a rest area at the side of the carriageway that night. The rest area wasn’t too bad but it rained really heavily and was all a bit miserable. The next day we went to the Billabong Koala wildlife park which was great and we have lots of photos below. We stroked a Koala, a couple of small Crocodiles, Python and fed the Kangaroos, and Graham got attacked by a black swan which was after the kangaroo food he was holding. One of the small crocodiles managed to come free from the tape holding his mouth shut and was pretty miffed when the second tape was applied, and every time someone touched him he had a little protesting throat growl which was quite funny. We’ve uploaded photos of the park below.
From Port Macquarie we ventured south again as we wanted to get closer to Sydney ready for New Years eve to see the fireworks from the Harbour Bridge. The drive down to Newcastle was approximately 5 hours which was hard work in the heat. Reading on the internet we found a car-park right on Nobby’s Head beach which you could overnight on so decided to try another free night. We arrived and parked up at about 2pm -the beach was busy and full of windsurfers and kite surfers. Walking along the road that runs along the beach and along the edge of the cliffs we came across a giant open-air swimming pool which is fed by sea-water. There were plaques up showing the history of the pool and surrounding area – the pools were originally built by soldiers in early 1900’s and the area was attacked by a Japanese Sub, the damage of which you can see on the pool house when looking round as the front of the building is propped with all the back part still missing. etc.
That night we walked into town to get some food and on our way down spotted a cool pub/club which was right on the harbour’s edge but also continued out onto a jetty where a random concoction of a DJ and drummer blasted out their music. It was absolutely loaded with people, all dancing and partying which amazed us both because there were no guard barriers or railings to stop you falling in like you get in England. We stayed there for an hour or so and had a drink. The beer out here is really weak and you get it served in a ‘Schooner’ which is basically just over half a pint, its tiny and its surprising people out here manage to get drunk - especially when you get to pay 5 dollars for the privilege – no pints anywhere in sight! Ily had to have a beer as the mixers were even more pathetic, you get those in a glass about the size of two egg cups and that was 7 bucks.
That night we hid away in our campervan as we thought it less likely to get moved on if we made out we were not sleeping in the van - so had the roof down and surfboard inside with us which was a bit of a squeeze and ily woke up with board wax all over her feet. The next morning we decided that we needed to get booked into a site for Christmas as didn’t want to rough camp over the holiday period. We decided we would stay a couple of nights in Newcastle so drove to the only paid camp-site available to check in. Speaking to the guy who works there, he said that although he had two nights available, we would have to leave on Boxing Day as he was fully booked up-to New Year’s. Apparently, the Australians go mad for camping on Boxing Day and all the sites around Sydney and the area were likely to be booked up. However, the bloke was really friendly and phoned around for us but most places were booked up, one of the sites wanted $65 for non-powered patch of grass and a minimum of 8 – 9 nights to book the spot. The man at the site managed for find us a spot in Wollongong which is a way south of Sydney and provisionally booked us in for 50 bucks a night but we wanted to spend New Year’s in Sydney.
We started the drive south to Wollongong (6hr drive) and phoned up a site in Sydney, spoke to a lady on the phone and she said that she had powered site available on a first come first served basis and that is was $45 a night. On hearing that we drove straight there and arrived at the site about 4 hrs later. The site was hard to find and in a Sydney suburb called Rockdale. Speaking to the lady on the site they are geared up for backpackers and travellers only as the site is the closest site to Sydney CBD and there is a train station just up the road that takes you to Town Hall. With that we booked up for 9 nights to take us up to the 2nd Jan.
We parked up the van and decided that we needed to urgently get some food in for Christmas day, we walked to the local shopping mall and picked up a load of food, the Turkey here is really expensive about $16 dollars for a processed cooked small lump of meat which looked horrible so we decided in true Aussie style it would be sausages, shrimp, steak for Christmas dinner with some veg. One hour back to the site on foot we put all the stuff away and started to chill out.
No sooner had we pulled up another van the same as ours pulled up next to us, that is how we met our first friends out here Colin and Sarah. Colin is from up north and Sarah from Essex. They are both great people and it was good to get on the booze and have a laugh – we thusly named our group the ‘Urvan gang’. They have been here since August and have lots of info about the regional work that you have to do in order to get the extension on the holiday visa. The regional work however sounds like a right nightmare the only upside of it is that the money can be good and after three months you can earn around 18k for the two of you. Downside is that the work sounds hard and the living conditions for three months in the middle of nowhere sound a bit rough.
We thought that if we did not want to labour it out in the fields doing farm work we could just rely on getting a QS job to do our three months but looks like unless you work in certain postcodes you can’t qualify for extension of the visa. As a consequence if there is not a massive construction job based in the ‘ass end of nowhere’ we need to do the hard regional work -so looks like we are going to have to bite the bullet and live hard for three months. We are thinking sooner rather than later too as we want to replenish our funds and get it over and done with.
Christmas Eve - that night was fun and we went to bed quite late and woke up early (ish) on Christmas morning. We got up and opened our cards (thanks for the cards and money) and then the rain started to lash it down and with it came a huge thunderstorm. The rain just kept coming and coming and the temperature dropped right down to 20 degrees which to us seemed freezing as we had be used to the thirties - had to dig out our jumpers and jeans .
All day the rain kept coming down and did not look like it was going to stop- despite us rigging our canopy between the two vans sheltering us from the wind the rain still came through it . Both Urvans started to leak through the pop tops and we had to have roofs down meaning that we could not easily cook anything for Christmas dinner. Despite all of this though the mood was pretty good and then we remembered that there was a communal BBQ area on site. Walking over we noticed that it was empty which was odd so we combined food with Colin and Sarah and started to cook Christmas dinner and started drinking. It was good to be out of the rain and we had Christmas music playing on the I-phone through our speaker system - it was a good laugh. We have pictures of the four of us below.
On Boxing day the weather was still cold but luckily we had no rain, all four of us went into Sydney to look at the passes for the tourist attractions. Our mates had booked up a cruise liner which set them back $1200 to see the fireworks and by all accounts from people we had spoken to (around the campsite etc.), the fireworks would be so busy in Sydney you have to get there at 10am and stay there shoulder to shoulder in a no drinking zone until midnight in order to have a chance at seeing the fireworks. We decided that we needed to work out what we were doing on New Year’s. We looked into going on a boat which was $700 each but luckily speaking to a nice woman at tourist information we managed to get one of the last places in the Sydney tower which includes all your food and drink all night from 7pm – 1am for $400 each. Although quite expensive, we think we will have the best view of the fireworks as we will be able to see all over the whole of Sydney inc. Darling Harbour, Opera House, Central Town and Suburbs.
Colin and Sarah decided to try out the bridge climb over the harbour bridge but at $200 dollars a person we decided to give it a miss as we would see all the sights from the tower on New Year’s eve. We all had a drink in a little hotel under the bridge before they set off for their climb. We stuck around and had dinner and then decided to have a stroll back though ‘the rocks’ before heading back. The rocks is the last remaining section of the original buildings built on the migration over during the first western colonisations. It’s a relatively tiny bit of Sydney which would no longer be there if the protests hadn’t saved it during the mass demolition to make way for the construction of the bridge. It was quite an interesting walk if not somewhat eerie as we were going through it at night. All the history plaques painted quite a picture - describing how this was the red-light and opium den district of the city where ex-convicts would spend their leisure time. One of the little alleyways was apparently ruled by a gang that were so ‘full-on’ even the police didn’t dare set foot inside. The roads were made of wood block to reduce noise and dust from the carts originally in the missions but unfortunately only a very small section no larger than a small car is left visible – although apparently many areas within the high street (redubbed George street in honour of king George) still have the original block beneath. We have a few photos of the remains of some of the houses carved into the rock at the back of this area below – plus some of the massive roaches that still reside.
Anyway, as for week four- We were due at the mechanics to fix the alternator on the van at 8:00am and we woke up early and got ready to go. Only thing was we needed a jump start and we had forgotten to arrange it the night before with the camp minders, and their office on site did not open until 9:30am, meaning we would miss or slot at the mechanics. Fortunately, Graham asked a friendly couple a few pitches up on the site and luckily for us they had a set of jump leads. Graham was a bit worried though when speaking to them as this couple, in their early to mid-forties, explained to him that they were a bit frightened by our camper as they had been up all night smoking (Wacky Baccy) and the bloke had felt that the loose tape on our pop-top (blowing in the wind) was talking to him. Plus, the bloke looked like he still had a bit on board. Anyway, he drove his 4x4 up to our van nearly ripping our driver’s side door off in the process and handed us the jump starts. Ily connected the leads on the battery in the van and he connected at them at his end. We were both confused when we saw him put the red connector on the negative on his battery as we had connected it to the positive, but for some reason assumed he knew what he was doing. Ily turned over the engine on his command, but nothing was firing up. All of a sudden, Ily start’s yelling “the battery is on fire” - the smell of burning was immense but luckily it turned out that the small electrical fire only melted some of the heat shielding on the wiring to the battery. The guy was extremely apologetic, and as soon as he realised his mistake put them round the right way. Annoyingly though it blew the fuse in the back of the stereo which charges our sat nav so Graham had to repair that aswell. When we were paying for the alternator repairs, we realised how lucky we had been, as apparently we were the last people the mechanic had accepted work from before the holidays and the last job before he shut up shop ‘till after New Year’s. We managed to get out of Nambucca heads and head south to Port Macquarie with the fixed van.
In Port Macquarie, which was about a 3-4 hour drive (allowing our battery a good charge), we decided to buy a battery pack jump starter which also doubles as a 12v power supply for our TV and aerial when camping on the roadside. It has many nifty gadgets and also charges off our main battery when we drive, so we would have no danger of breaking down like that again. We needed to save cash, so decided to sleep in a rest area at the side of the carriageway that night. The rest area wasn’t too bad but it rained really heavily and was all a bit miserable. The next day we went to the Billabong Koala wildlife park which was great and we have lots of photos below. We stroked a Koala, a couple of small Crocodiles, Python and fed the Kangaroos, and Graham got attacked by a black swan which was after the kangaroo food he was holding. One of the small crocodiles managed to come free from the tape holding his mouth shut and was pretty miffed when the second tape was applied, and every time someone touched him he had a little protesting throat growl which was quite funny. We’ve uploaded photos of the park below.
From Port Macquarie we ventured south again as we wanted to get closer to Sydney ready for New Years eve to see the fireworks from the Harbour Bridge. The drive down to Newcastle was approximately 5 hours which was hard work in the heat. Reading on the internet we found a car-park right on Nobby’s Head beach which you could overnight on so decided to try another free night. We arrived and parked up at about 2pm -the beach was busy and full of windsurfers and kite surfers. Walking along the road that runs along the beach and along the edge of the cliffs we came across a giant open-air swimming pool which is fed by sea-water. There were plaques up showing the history of the pool and surrounding area – the pools were originally built by soldiers in early 1900’s and the area was attacked by a Japanese Sub, the damage of which you can see on the pool house when looking round as the front of the building is propped with all the back part still missing. etc.
That night we walked into town to get some food and on our way down spotted a cool pub/club which was right on the harbour’s edge but also continued out onto a jetty where a random concoction of a DJ and drummer blasted out their music. It was absolutely loaded with people, all dancing and partying which amazed us both because there were no guard barriers or railings to stop you falling in like you get in England. We stayed there for an hour or so and had a drink. The beer out here is really weak and you get it served in a ‘Schooner’ which is basically just over half a pint, its tiny and its surprising people out here manage to get drunk - especially when you get to pay 5 dollars for the privilege – no pints anywhere in sight! Ily had to have a beer as the mixers were even more pathetic, you get those in a glass about the size of two egg cups and that was 7 bucks.
That night we hid away in our campervan as we thought it less likely to get moved on if we made out we were not sleeping in the van - so had the roof down and surfboard inside with us which was a bit of a squeeze and ily woke up with board wax all over her feet. The next morning we decided that we needed to get booked into a site for Christmas as didn’t want to rough camp over the holiday period. We decided we would stay a couple of nights in Newcastle so drove to the only paid camp-site available to check in. Speaking to the guy who works there, he said that although he had two nights available, we would have to leave on Boxing Day as he was fully booked up-to New Year’s. Apparently, the Australians go mad for camping on Boxing Day and all the sites around Sydney and the area were likely to be booked up. However, the bloke was really friendly and phoned around for us but most places were booked up, one of the sites wanted $65 for non-powered patch of grass and a minimum of 8 – 9 nights to book the spot. The man at the site managed for find us a spot in Wollongong which is a way south of Sydney and provisionally booked us in for 50 bucks a night but we wanted to spend New Year’s in Sydney.
We started the drive south to Wollongong (6hr drive) and phoned up a site in Sydney, spoke to a lady on the phone and she said that she had powered site available on a first come first served basis and that is was $45 a night. On hearing that we drove straight there and arrived at the site about 4 hrs later. The site was hard to find and in a Sydney suburb called Rockdale. Speaking to the lady on the site they are geared up for backpackers and travellers only as the site is the closest site to Sydney CBD and there is a train station just up the road that takes you to Town Hall. With that we booked up for 9 nights to take us up to the 2nd Jan.
We parked up the van and decided that we needed to urgently get some food in for Christmas day, we walked to the local shopping mall and picked up a load of food, the Turkey here is really expensive about $16 dollars for a processed cooked small lump of meat which looked horrible so we decided in true Aussie style it would be sausages, shrimp, steak for Christmas dinner with some veg. One hour back to the site on foot we put all the stuff away and started to chill out.
No sooner had we pulled up another van the same as ours pulled up next to us, that is how we met our first friends out here Colin and Sarah. Colin is from up north and Sarah from Essex. They are both great people and it was good to get on the booze and have a laugh – we thusly named our group the ‘Urvan gang’. They have been here since August and have lots of info about the regional work that you have to do in order to get the extension on the holiday visa. The regional work however sounds like a right nightmare the only upside of it is that the money can be good and after three months you can earn around 18k for the two of you. Downside is that the work sounds hard and the living conditions for three months in the middle of nowhere sound a bit rough.
We thought that if we did not want to labour it out in the fields doing farm work we could just rely on getting a QS job to do our three months but looks like unless you work in certain postcodes you can’t qualify for extension of the visa. As a consequence if there is not a massive construction job based in the ‘ass end of nowhere’ we need to do the hard regional work -so looks like we are going to have to bite the bullet and live hard for three months. We are thinking sooner rather than later too as we want to replenish our funds and get it over and done with.
Christmas Eve - that night was fun and we went to bed quite late and woke up early (ish) on Christmas morning. We got up and opened our cards (thanks for the cards and money) and then the rain started to lash it down and with it came a huge thunderstorm. The rain just kept coming and coming and the temperature dropped right down to 20 degrees which to us seemed freezing as we had be used to the thirties - had to dig out our jumpers and jeans .
All day the rain kept coming down and did not look like it was going to stop- despite us rigging our canopy between the two vans sheltering us from the wind the rain still came through it . Both Urvans started to leak through the pop tops and we had to have roofs down meaning that we could not easily cook anything for Christmas dinner. Despite all of this though the mood was pretty good and then we remembered that there was a communal BBQ area on site. Walking over we noticed that it was empty which was odd so we combined food with Colin and Sarah and started to cook Christmas dinner and started drinking. It was good to be out of the rain and we had Christmas music playing on the I-phone through our speaker system - it was a good laugh. We have pictures of the four of us below.
On Boxing day the weather was still cold but luckily we had no rain, all four of us went into Sydney to look at the passes for the tourist attractions. Our mates had booked up a cruise liner which set them back $1200 to see the fireworks and by all accounts from people we had spoken to (around the campsite etc.), the fireworks would be so busy in Sydney you have to get there at 10am and stay there shoulder to shoulder in a no drinking zone until midnight in order to have a chance at seeing the fireworks. We decided that we needed to work out what we were doing on New Year’s. We looked into going on a boat which was $700 each but luckily speaking to a nice woman at tourist information we managed to get one of the last places in the Sydney tower which includes all your food and drink all night from 7pm – 1am for $400 each. Although quite expensive, we think we will have the best view of the fireworks as we will be able to see all over the whole of Sydney inc. Darling Harbour, Opera House, Central Town and Suburbs.
Colin and Sarah decided to try out the bridge climb over the harbour bridge but at $200 dollars a person we decided to give it a miss as we would see all the sights from the tower on New Year’s eve. We all had a drink in a little hotel under the bridge before they set off for their climb. We stuck around and had dinner and then decided to have a stroll back though ‘the rocks’ before heading back. The rocks is the last remaining section of the original buildings built on the migration over during the first western colonisations. It’s a relatively tiny bit of Sydney which would no longer be there if the protests hadn’t saved it during the mass demolition to make way for the construction of the bridge. It was quite an interesting walk if not somewhat eerie as we were going through it at night. All the history plaques painted quite a picture - describing how this was the red-light and opium den district of the city where ex-convicts would spend their leisure time. One of the little alleyways was apparently ruled by a gang that were so ‘full-on’ even the police didn’t dare set foot inside. The roads were made of wood block to reduce noise and dust from the carts originally in the missions but unfortunately only a very small section no larger than a small car is left visible – although apparently many areas within the high street (redubbed George street in honour of king George) still have the original block beneath. We have a few photos of the remains of some of the houses carved into the rock at the back of this area below – plus some of the massive roaches that still reside.
Week 5 - New Years Eve 2012
We went back into Sydney at the beginning of this week to get the attraction pass and booked up a ride on the jet boat straight away. Looking at the people coming back in, they all looked a little bit wet but not too bad, Graham and Colin decided that it was pointless going for a waterproof poncho although everyone else on the boat wore one - The idea was that weather was so hot, if you got wet it wouldn’t matter. However the boat driver changed just before we went out. This driver was probably a little bit more ‘full on’ than the previous though, because although it was brilliant we all got soaked through even those who wore full length poncho’s. He was doing 360 degree spins, handbrake turns and emergency stops which threw massive waves up – particularly hitting the back row where our group were sitting. It was a crazy ride for 30mins, after which you were soaked through, cold and glad to get off the thing. Unfortunately, we had decided to wear jean shorts so it took ages to dry off and despite being in Sydney for several hours later were still pretty soaked when we got back.
We walked around Sydney harbour after the jet boat ride and decided to take the ferry across to Darling Harbour where we walked for a little until we came across the sea life centre and decided to go in hoping to dry off a bit better. It was good fun going round looking at some of the strange creatures. Ily thought the Dugong was well cute (looks like a large seal with a funny face) but we got some pictures of quite a few of the species, including a crab which was approximately 6 foot across. Unfortunately due to the thick glass, which was often curved, it made taking the photo’s more than a little tricky as it would distort the image.
The next day was van DIY day and it took ages to go to around the shops and get the stuff we needed. We got some better paint to finish off the inside - and handles to put on pop top to strap the surfboard to. Ily continued to re-upholster the seating in the new fabric we bought in Ballina – she is on the last pillow now which she is well chuffed about as stitching the pop-top and having to reupholster all the seats by hand is taking its toll on her fingers. Will put pho’s up when all the painting and sewing etc is complete!
We went back into Sydney to use our last pass in the maritime museum and we went on- board the HMM Vampire which was a destroyer from the 70s. The conditions on- board looked cramped and had that funny old musty 70’s smell about it. It was quite interesting but not much too report but we have photos below. Due to not getting there until later on in the day we did not have time to board the submarine neither the Endeavour which was Captin Cooks ship so we put our names down to go in the following day to finish seeing everything.
New years eve was a hot day, by 9am it was reading 32 degrees in the van and we had to get into Sydney and to the museum at Darling harbour and then back out to the tower by 7pm so we thought it was going to be a hard day. Setting off at 12ish we got to the station and on the train no problem and down to Darling harbour. Although crowds were starting to build it was not as busy as we thought it would be and being new years the maritime museum was almost empty. We went on-board the submarine and on- board the Endeavour. Both were really cramped inside and we managed to smash our heads on things a few times. Overall it was interesting although I was supprised at how small the Endeavour was in comparison to the Victory that I have been on a couple of times. It was used originally for transporting coal and things and was retro – fitted for the exploration south.
After the museum we walked back through Sydney about a 20 min walk to the Sydney Tower. They would not let you check in until 7pm so we had to hang around for an hour. We managed at checking in time to push our way to the front of the queue and we were the first ones to be seated for new year’s eve.
Being a buffet style dinner as advertised we thought the food would be ok but not fantastic. The food however was pretty awesome and ran from 7pm to 11pm. All drinks were free and you got champagne when you arrived and slightly before midnight to celebrate new year’s. The view from the tower was stunning, it’s the highest building in Sydney and you could see all of the fireworks going off around the city. At sunset and evening the view only got better. We were lucky as the tower is constantly turning (it does a revolution every hour) when the 9pm firework display started we were sat facing it at Darling Harbour so saw it brilliantly. There are about three different displays going on a the same time so we could see all of them. Because we were so high up you had to look down to see the fireworks.
At the midnight display they stop the turning of the tower and we all stood up looking through the glass, the view was great as all of a sudden the sky came to light in-front of us and for half an hour you did not know where to look as too much was going on.
By the end of the evening at 1am we had drank quite a bit and it was time to leave. You could see all of the people in the city below running along the streets to get to busses and trains home and thought it would be a nightmare getting back. Luckily the tower is only a couple of roads from the Town Hall station so we quickly made our way on foot and was only waiting 5 mins before a train turned up and we got on, we even managed to get a seat. By 2am we were back at the van and we pretty much passed out, well Ily was awake for a bit as had an Irish coffee which kept her awake.
As we are writing this on New year’s day we are planning what to do next. We have been 9 /10 hours north and driven down in the last few weeks and seen a lot of Sydney so think its time to head south to Victoria whilst it’s still summer. We need to get some money coming in and need to do our regional work so are planning tomorrow to leave the site at 10am and drive south to Shell Harbour and the continue south over the next week living in rest stops. We are going to phone the harvest line tomorrow for advice on where to go. Looking at the guide pears and apples are in season in Victoria for 3 months and we need to do three month’s work to qualify for our second year visa.
We will keep you updated on how we get on but could be without the laptop for a few days until we get to a powered site again.
Happy New Year!
On the 2nd after leaving our powered site we headed into Sydney quickly to pick up a couple of e – readers for relaxing days before we headed south. We got the e- readers and then drove out of Sydney south at about mid –day. The weather was overcast and we were both feeling a little under the weather, Ily was driving and we got about 2 hrs south and we both started to feel really sleepy and ill. We located a rest stop (the 1st one out of Sydney) on the map and headed there so we could get some sleep. It was really strange as we were both shattered and when we arrived at the rest area about 3pm we fell asleep. We both woke up the next day feeling better and then headed south to Shell Harbour and the Shoalhaven area. We went on the beach near Shell Harbour but could not swim as there were loads of Blue Bottle jellyfish about although I went in for 10 mins then gave up. We then stayed in a rest area further south which was supposed to be one of the editor’s choices to stay at but it was pretty horrible with long drop toilets and the site was covered with trees which attracts insects. What’s amazing about Australians is that they will go to one of these places and camp there for a week at the time with all of their gear, 4x4’s and massive motorhomes and they think it’s great. We much prefer sites without the wildlife! We continued to make our way south to Eden the next day which is the furthest town south in New South Wales, stopping off in town to pick up supplies and to go on the beach. We noticed as we got further south the heat seemed to increase massively and the heat was more of a dry heat than humid like Sydney. We stayed in another rest areas by a small Dam and spoke to an older couple from Tasmania or as the locals call it %9
We walked around Sydney harbour after the jet boat ride and decided to take the ferry across to Darling Harbour where we walked for a little until we came across the sea life centre and decided to go in hoping to dry off a bit better. It was good fun going round looking at some of the strange creatures. Ily thought the Dugong was well cute (looks like a large seal with a funny face) but we got some pictures of quite a few of the species, including a crab which was approximately 6 foot across. Unfortunately due to the thick glass, which was often curved, it made taking the photo’s more than a little tricky as it would distort the image.
The next day was van DIY day and it took ages to go to around the shops and get the stuff we needed. We got some better paint to finish off the inside - and handles to put on pop top to strap the surfboard to. Ily continued to re-upholster the seating in the new fabric we bought in Ballina – she is on the last pillow now which she is well chuffed about as stitching the pop-top and having to reupholster all the seats by hand is taking its toll on her fingers. Will put pho’s up when all the painting and sewing etc is complete!
We went back into Sydney to use our last pass in the maritime museum and we went on- board the HMM Vampire which was a destroyer from the 70s. The conditions on- board looked cramped and had that funny old musty 70’s smell about it. It was quite interesting but not much too report but we have photos below. Due to not getting there until later on in the day we did not have time to board the submarine neither the Endeavour which was Captin Cooks ship so we put our names down to go in the following day to finish seeing everything.
New years eve was a hot day, by 9am it was reading 32 degrees in the van and we had to get into Sydney and to the museum at Darling harbour and then back out to the tower by 7pm so we thought it was going to be a hard day. Setting off at 12ish we got to the station and on the train no problem and down to Darling harbour. Although crowds were starting to build it was not as busy as we thought it would be and being new years the maritime museum was almost empty. We went on-board the submarine and on- board the Endeavour. Both were really cramped inside and we managed to smash our heads on things a few times. Overall it was interesting although I was supprised at how small the Endeavour was in comparison to the Victory that I have been on a couple of times. It was used originally for transporting coal and things and was retro – fitted for the exploration south.
After the museum we walked back through Sydney about a 20 min walk to the Sydney Tower. They would not let you check in until 7pm so we had to hang around for an hour. We managed at checking in time to push our way to the front of the queue and we were the first ones to be seated for new year’s eve.
Being a buffet style dinner as advertised we thought the food would be ok but not fantastic. The food however was pretty awesome and ran from 7pm to 11pm. All drinks were free and you got champagne when you arrived and slightly before midnight to celebrate new year’s. The view from the tower was stunning, it’s the highest building in Sydney and you could see all of the fireworks going off around the city. At sunset and evening the view only got better. We were lucky as the tower is constantly turning (it does a revolution every hour) when the 9pm firework display started we were sat facing it at Darling Harbour so saw it brilliantly. There are about three different displays going on a the same time so we could see all of them. Because we were so high up you had to look down to see the fireworks.
At the midnight display they stop the turning of the tower and we all stood up looking through the glass, the view was great as all of a sudden the sky came to light in-front of us and for half an hour you did not know where to look as too much was going on.
By the end of the evening at 1am we had drank quite a bit and it was time to leave. You could see all of the people in the city below running along the streets to get to busses and trains home and thought it would be a nightmare getting back. Luckily the tower is only a couple of roads from the Town Hall station so we quickly made our way on foot and was only waiting 5 mins before a train turned up and we got on, we even managed to get a seat. By 2am we were back at the van and we pretty much passed out, well Ily was awake for a bit as had an Irish coffee which kept her awake.
As we are writing this on New year’s day we are planning what to do next. We have been 9 /10 hours north and driven down in the last few weeks and seen a lot of Sydney so think its time to head south to Victoria whilst it’s still summer. We need to get some money coming in and need to do our regional work so are planning tomorrow to leave the site at 10am and drive south to Shell Harbour and the continue south over the next week living in rest stops. We are going to phone the harvest line tomorrow for advice on where to go. Looking at the guide pears and apples are in season in Victoria for 3 months and we need to do three month’s work to qualify for our second year visa.
We will keep you updated on how we get on but could be without the laptop for a few days until we get to a powered site again.
Happy New Year!
On the 2nd after leaving our powered site we headed into Sydney quickly to pick up a couple of e – readers for relaxing days before we headed south. We got the e- readers and then drove out of Sydney south at about mid –day. The weather was overcast and we were both feeling a little under the weather, Ily was driving and we got about 2 hrs south and we both started to feel really sleepy and ill. We located a rest stop (the 1st one out of Sydney) on the map and headed there so we could get some sleep. It was really strange as we were both shattered and when we arrived at the rest area about 3pm we fell asleep. We both woke up the next day feeling better and then headed south to Shell Harbour and the Shoalhaven area. We went on the beach near Shell Harbour but could not swim as there were loads of Blue Bottle jellyfish about although I went in for 10 mins then gave up. We then stayed in a rest area further south which was supposed to be one of the editor’s choices to stay at but it was pretty horrible with long drop toilets and the site was covered with trees which attracts insects. What’s amazing about Australians is that they will go to one of these places and camp there for a week at the time with all of their gear, 4x4’s and massive motorhomes and they think it’s great. We much prefer sites without the wildlife! We continued to make our way south to Eden the next day which is the furthest town south in New South Wales, stopping off in town to pick up supplies and to go on the beach. We noticed as we got further south the heat seemed to increase massively and the heat was more of a dry heat than humid like Sydney. We stayed in another rest areas by a small Dam and spoke to an older couple from Tasmania or as the locals call it %9
Week 6 (Sat 5th – Fri 11th Jan)
The next day we just wanted to drive and get to civilisation so Ily did a massive drive from Genoa to 20km east of Melbourne, it took us all day and all the time we were driving the heat was raining down on us. The woodland by the side of the road in Victoria (especially the trees) for a good 200km stretch was scorched black where there had been fires in the past. There was no more green grass but everything was landscaped like rural England (i.e. farmland) but it is all brown due to the heat as far as the eye could see. We drove for hours and hours and finally arrived at the final free rest area just off the highway prior Melbourne. The trip from Sydney to Melbourne took in total 5 days.
After a night in another fly ridden rest area we called the harvest line again which is an office which will find you fruit picking work who said again (this is 5 days on the trot) that we are in the right area but nothing yet on the system. They advised us to call back later in the day in case something came up (which is what they all ways say) therefore we decided to get into Melbourne into a paid site and get showered and do the laundry.
We stayed at a nice site which just had a brand new toilet / shower / communal block built, the strange thing was that we were the only ones in an old camper, everyone else had massive motorhome trucks with the sides that pop out or large Winnebago’s. Speaking to the receptionist it turns out that all of the people around us were not massively rich but lived in these things and therefore didn’t have a house! There seems to be a lot of people here who just don’t bother with houses just have massive motorhomes and park up on these site for a maximum duration of 55 days then they have to move on. The site was great and we went into Melbourne the next day which was a train journey away of bout an hour.
Melbourne is a much smaller less busy version of Sydney, much more relaxed but lacks the sights although there are a lot of stadiums around like the Olympic stadium, Etihad and various others and they were selling tickets for the Australian Open tennis which was about to start. We spent the day going around on the tram but there was not much to see unless you did the same sort of tourist stuff we spent a lot of our time doing in Sydney, so one day there was enough. Getting back to the site we met back up with Colin and Sarah who turned up to stay with us and put the TV on to see the news about the forest fires. It turns out the roads which we had been driving on to get from New South Wales to Victoria were pretty much on fire and the highways were closed and sections of the country isolated by fires.
There were about 140 burning fires that evening with about 5 in Victoria north and to the west of us. The fire ratings were upgraded to the top level which is catastrophic which means that if one starts the emergency services won’t be able to extinguish, and you basically have to run to the beach (that was the awesome advice on TV). As I write this there is a tropical storm building off of Western Australia (to the north) at a category 4 rating but as I have not seen the TV for a couple of days it may have blown over?
We stayed on the site for three days in total and managed to rip out the old carpet from the interior roof and replace with new carpet. It was an absolute nightmare but we have nearly finished just another day needed to finish and tidy up. We phoned the harvest line again and they said that due to the fires there was no work available until fires gone and then they could not guarantee the crops were there to pick etc and to site tight so we thought sod it and decided to move west through Victoria towards Adelaide in Western Australia.
We headed out on the highway heading towards the Great Ocean Drive which is a famous stretch of road which runs along the coast. We drove for approximately 5 hours from our site to a place funnily called Torquay which is at the start of the drive. As we were driving along the main highway we saw a bush fire in the distance which was not looking too bad as the cars were still moving so can only assume that it just started. Pics are below but as not that eventful we don’t have many to share.
After a night in another fly ridden rest area we called the harvest line again which is an office which will find you fruit picking work who said again (this is 5 days on the trot) that we are in the right area but nothing yet on the system. They advised us to call back later in the day in case something came up (which is what they all ways say) therefore we decided to get into Melbourne into a paid site and get showered and do the laundry.
We stayed at a nice site which just had a brand new toilet / shower / communal block built, the strange thing was that we were the only ones in an old camper, everyone else had massive motorhome trucks with the sides that pop out or large Winnebago’s. Speaking to the receptionist it turns out that all of the people around us were not massively rich but lived in these things and therefore didn’t have a house! There seems to be a lot of people here who just don’t bother with houses just have massive motorhomes and park up on these site for a maximum duration of 55 days then they have to move on. The site was great and we went into Melbourne the next day which was a train journey away of bout an hour.
Melbourne is a much smaller less busy version of Sydney, much more relaxed but lacks the sights although there are a lot of stadiums around like the Olympic stadium, Etihad and various others and they were selling tickets for the Australian Open tennis which was about to start. We spent the day going around on the tram but there was not much to see unless you did the same sort of tourist stuff we spent a lot of our time doing in Sydney, so one day there was enough. Getting back to the site we met back up with Colin and Sarah who turned up to stay with us and put the TV on to see the news about the forest fires. It turns out the roads which we had been driving on to get from New South Wales to Victoria were pretty much on fire and the highways were closed and sections of the country isolated by fires.
There were about 140 burning fires that evening with about 5 in Victoria north and to the west of us. The fire ratings were upgraded to the top level which is catastrophic which means that if one starts the emergency services won’t be able to extinguish, and you basically have to run to the beach (that was the awesome advice on TV). As I write this there is a tropical storm building off of Western Australia (to the north) at a category 4 rating but as I have not seen the TV for a couple of days it may have blown over?
We stayed on the site for three days in total and managed to rip out the old carpet from the interior roof and replace with new carpet. It was an absolute nightmare but we have nearly finished just another day needed to finish and tidy up. We phoned the harvest line again and they said that due to the fires there was no work available until fires gone and then they could not guarantee the crops were there to pick etc and to site tight so we thought sod it and decided to move west through Victoria towards Adelaide in Western Australia.
We headed out on the highway heading towards the Great Ocean Drive which is a famous stretch of road which runs along the coast. We drove for approximately 5 hours from our site to a place funnily called Torquay which is at the start of the drive. As we were driving along the main highway we saw a bush fire in the distance which was not looking too bad as the cars were still moving so can only assume that it just started. Pics are below but as not that eventful we don’t have many to share.
Week 7 Sat 12th – Fri 18th Jan)
We drove the start of the Great Ocean Drive in convoy and decided to stay the night on a free site nearby and ended up going up a really steep gradient for a about 10ks to a camp area which was in the middle of a forest! It was a little bit strange being surrounded by thick, dense bush (see pics below) and the flies which were getting into our vans were massive, biggest we have seen in our lives.
We stayed the night there and woke the next morning to be told by a park ranger that due to fire risk we ought to head out towards the sea and stay there till the risks reduced. We therefore decided to have a drive along the great ocean road for a few hours before selecting our next spot on the beach, we took lots of pictures of the route which are below. However, we went to start the van and drive off and for some reason the van would not go into gear with the engine on, it would only select gears with the engine off! This was a bit stressful as we were in the ass end of nowhere and we rallied around to try and locate the problem and assumed as our oil was a little low this maybe causing the problem. We put some oil in and ran the engine and it seemed to work, although I was surprised at how little was required in order to make the difference so thought there could be an underlying issue.
Anyway, with that fixed we headed off along the coast to Apollo Bay and beyond and about after an hour I could only select 4th gear and the roads were steep and twisty so we had to pull into the side of the road. Looking over the van we could only assume that something had gone wrong with the clutch and maybe a bit of adjustment would cure it. We searched and searched for the cable to adjust then it dawned on us, it was a hydraulic clutch and the brake fluid fed the clutch. I had noticed for some time that our brake light warning on the dash had been on but as brakes worked fine assumed an electrical fault (as the vans so old). Looking at the reservoir of the brake fluid the thing had almost run empty. Looking under the van in the past I had noticed a small leak of what I assumed was oil as looked dark in colour, when we traced the hose under the van we could see that the leak was brake fluid and that due to the age of a rubber flange it had misshapen over time and leaked with every movement of the stick.
Luckily for us Colin and Sarah were on hand to give us a lift to the nearest petrol garage where we bought some brake fluid and puncture repair kit, to patch up where we thought the flange had split..
On return it appeared that it was just misshapen so we split some spare TV aerial wire out of its casing and tied it around the end of the flange. Just a little pressure was required to create a great seal with no leaks and we were able to run new fluid into the system and get going. Monitoring the repair it’s holding perfectly thus we won’t need a new part so that saved us some cash.
We arrived at our beach side rest area which was pleasant luckily and decided to camp for the night. The surf was choppy and blown out so not really an option. We cooked dinner and watched the film Bruno on DVD (which is hilarious). Looking up at the sky at night the stars are unlike anything we have seen, clear and bright, due to the lack of light pollution in the area we could even see the Milky Way haze amongst the stars with some clarity.
We went to bed at midnight and were about to sleep when all of a sudden we heard a loud engine racing up the track beeping its horn waking everyone in the site. When we looked closer we could see that there was a guy strapped to the back of the truck with a burning red flare poking out of his ass! I thought to myself, have Stavy and Hansel arrived for the tour J.
The next morning we carried along the great ocean road stopping off here and there, stopping of in Port Fairy and Warnabool as well as seeing the twelve apostles (even though we could only count about eight from our spot) and ended up in a paid campsite where you could have camp fires and a shower. It was a nice evening apart from when Graham got up at 5am the next morning for a wee and found that the toilet block was closed for cleaning and told to come back in a hour, WTF!!! He could not hold on for that long and had to pee in the bucket in the van, managed to crawl outside to dispose around the front and forgot, in his sleepy state, that we had put up the wind- brake for the fire the night before. As he tried to go through it he spilt the pee all over himself whilst wearing Iliana’s flip flops, which was not the best (they have recently been disposed of).
We headed further West towards South Australia and stayed in a free site just near the end of the ocean drive about 100k’s East of Portland. We again tried the Harvest line but no luck and stayed there the night. The best thing about the experience was during the night a Koala came into the trees and we could hear it making a sort of growling squealing noise and could see its eyes in the dark. In the morning we saw it in the tree by our vans (pic below).
We headed on the next day toward Portland and again no luck with the harvest line, we decided to spend a day on the beach and we went surfing, Graham is getting better on the smaller board to the point where he can sort of stand on it. Unfortunately by the time he is up and located himself on the board the wave tends to die out. Hopefully, we might soon find 4 ft clean waves as opposed to massive or tiny ones.
We stayed the night in a nice little rest area which was under tree cover and had another camp fire defending ourselves from the pesky flies and other random things we have not seen before. The next day we drove into Portland and looked around, not a great deal to see and headed for another beach. By this time we were really getting fed up of not getting any luck with work so decided to take the fight to them and head inland to knock on doors in the farming areas. That night we stayed in a rest area called something sounding like Mount Schkank (skank) which was funny, nice area to stay though.
We were quite some distance away so spent the whole day driving and ended up in a town called Ararat. We booked into a paid site and headed for the pool ready for the next day where we would start looking for work. We started looking for work the next day in the town going to the tourist information offices and phoning up wineries but it would seem that we missed the boat or they already had enough labour sorted out that they use every year. So much for the guide book ‘Work about Australia’.
As nothing had presented itself we decided to move on towards the direction of Shepparton as this is described as “the fruit bowl of Australia”. We should be able to find work there surely?
We stayed the night there and woke the next morning to be told by a park ranger that due to fire risk we ought to head out towards the sea and stay there till the risks reduced. We therefore decided to have a drive along the great ocean road for a few hours before selecting our next spot on the beach, we took lots of pictures of the route which are below. However, we went to start the van and drive off and for some reason the van would not go into gear with the engine on, it would only select gears with the engine off! This was a bit stressful as we were in the ass end of nowhere and we rallied around to try and locate the problem and assumed as our oil was a little low this maybe causing the problem. We put some oil in and ran the engine and it seemed to work, although I was surprised at how little was required in order to make the difference so thought there could be an underlying issue.
Anyway, with that fixed we headed off along the coast to Apollo Bay and beyond and about after an hour I could only select 4th gear and the roads were steep and twisty so we had to pull into the side of the road. Looking over the van we could only assume that something had gone wrong with the clutch and maybe a bit of adjustment would cure it. We searched and searched for the cable to adjust then it dawned on us, it was a hydraulic clutch and the brake fluid fed the clutch. I had noticed for some time that our brake light warning on the dash had been on but as brakes worked fine assumed an electrical fault (as the vans so old). Looking at the reservoir of the brake fluid the thing had almost run empty. Looking under the van in the past I had noticed a small leak of what I assumed was oil as looked dark in colour, when we traced the hose under the van we could see that the leak was brake fluid and that due to the age of a rubber flange it had misshapen over time and leaked with every movement of the stick.
Luckily for us Colin and Sarah were on hand to give us a lift to the nearest petrol garage where we bought some brake fluid and puncture repair kit, to patch up where we thought the flange had split..
On return it appeared that it was just misshapen so we split some spare TV aerial wire out of its casing and tied it around the end of the flange. Just a little pressure was required to create a great seal with no leaks and we were able to run new fluid into the system and get going. Monitoring the repair it’s holding perfectly thus we won’t need a new part so that saved us some cash.
We arrived at our beach side rest area which was pleasant luckily and decided to camp for the night. The surf was choppy and blown out so not really an option. We cooked dinner and watched the film Bruno on DVD (which is hilarious). Looking up at the sky at night the stars are unlike anything we have seen, clear and bright, due to the lack of light pollution in the area we could even see the Milky Way haze amongst the stars with some clarity.
We went to bed at midnight and were about to sleep when all of a sudden we heard a loud engine racing up the track beeping its horn waking everyone in the site. When we looked closer we could see that there was a guy strapped to the back of the truck with a burning red flare poking out of his ass! I thought to myself, have Stavy and Hansel arrived for the tour J.
The next morning we carried along the great ocean road stopping off here and there, stopping of in Port Fairy and Warnabool as well as seeing the twelve apostles (even though we could only count about eight from our spot) and ended up in a paid campsite where you could have camp fires and a shower. It was a nice evening apart from when Graham got up at 5am the next morning for a wee and found that the toilet block was closed for cleaning and told to come back in a hour, WTF!!! He could not hold on for that long and had to pee in the bucket in the van, managed to crawl outside to dispose around the front and forgot, in his sleepy state, that we had put up the wind- brake for the fire the night before. As he tried to go through it he spilt the pee all over himself whilst wearing Iliana’s flip flops, which was not the best (they have recently been disposed of).
We headed further West towards South Australia and stayed in a free site just near the end of the ocean drive about 100k’s East of Portland. We again tried the Harvest line but no luck and stayed there the night. The best thing about the experience was during the night a Koala came into the trees and we could hear it making a sort of growling squealing noise and could see its eyes in the dark. In the morning we saw it in the tree by our vans (pic below).
We headed on the next day toward Portland and again no luck with the harvest line, we decided to spend a day on the beach and we went surfing, Graham is getting better on the smaller board to the point where he can sort of stand on it. Unfortunately by the time he is up and located himself on the board the wave tends to die out. Hopefully, we might soon find 4 ft clean waves as opposed to massive or tiny ones.
We stayed the night in a nice little rest area which was under tree cover and had another camp fire defending ourselves from the pesky flies and other random things we have not seen before. The next day we drove into Portland and looked around, not a great deal to see and headed for another beach. By this time we were really getting fed up of not getting any luck with work so decided to take the fight to them and head inland to knock on doors in the farming areas. That night we stayed in a rest area called something sounding like Mount Schkank (skank) which was funny, nice area to stay though.
We were quite some distance away so spent the whole day driving and ended up in a town called Ararat. We booked into a paid site and headed for the pool ready for the next day where we would start looking for work. We started looking for work the next day in the town going to the tourist information offices and phoning up wineries but it would seem that we missed the boat or they already had enough labour sorted out that they use every year. So much for the guide book ‘Work about Australia’.
As nothing had presented itself we decided to move on towards the direction of Shepparton as this is described as “the fruit bowl of Australia”. We should be able to find work there surely?
Week 8 Sat 19th – Fri 26th Jan)
Note: Forgot to mention in prev text that the islands sticking out of the water along the great ocean road are called the twelve apostles, it’s a big tourist attraction here, unfortunately, the day was a bit murky!
We headed into Shepparton to look for the local harvest employment office and spoke with a lady behind the counter who looked well fed up who basically said that that morning (it was only 10am) 175 people have registered for work and that there were no jobs yet available. All four of us left that place after registering feeling pretty low about the whole thing and then decided our best bet was just to search the area and knock on doors.
Driving around we turned up at a large orchard just outside Shepparton called Lennes orchard. We spoke to the farm manager who phoned the owner and he told us to come back on Tuesday. The day was Friday so decided to go to a local rest area and see what was about. The closest free one was in a place called Gigarre. It was good by free area standards with a shower, toilets and running clean water so we decided to make that our base.
The next day we drove about going to different farms and orchards but they all had “no work” signs on the notice boards or notices saying that that they only employed through contractors, we have heard that a lot of contractors take large fees for accommodation and using them so we thought we would steer clear of them.
We went to a camp site on the edge of Shepperton to ask about rates (in case we got work) and were pointed in the direction of a young girl who was trying to sell the services of a company called Unearthed Australia. Essentially for the small fee of £230 or £260 (she didn’t quite know) you could stay in the camp site (that they don’t even own) and they will get you work, although it’s not guaranteed because they have all of the contacts. Looking into this and asking around it seems that unless you pay extortionate campsite rates or hostel rates you are unlikely to get work and if you accept the rates and get work, the pay is rubbish and you don’t know where you will be from one place to the next. So what we are saying is that the majority of work out here is a massive con due to being screwed over by these third parties who do nothing for their money. The funny thing is that it’s not the Australian’s setting up these companies its foreigners, mostly the English, so we are kind of being screwed by our own. This also leaves the governmental harvest offices short of work hence the long queues outside the office.
We spent the weekend at the rest area and the heat was really kicking in, it was in the 40’s most days and all we could do was hide in the van under the shade of a tree. We could not go outside as the flies would try and get into your nose, mouth and ears. Ily glued some Velcro to the main door on the side which opens and put up a fly net to keep them out but still gets the breeze through which works very well.
It was hot on the Sunday so we decided to go to the local pool, I was surprised that the small town actually had a pool and at only $2 entry it was a bargain. We spent a few hours in the pool, Colin and Sarah started playing cricket with a couple of local guys and seemed to be having a laugh so we all joined in. After about an hour one of the guys disappeared and returned with a slab of beer and bottles of wild turkeys. We thought that was odd but as he fancied himself as some kind of town mafia he said that he could get away with it so we all had a beer playing cricket. At the time there was something strange about this man but we could not place it.
The next day we thought we would go back to the harvest office in Shepparton to sign in and again there was no work about so we decided to do some shopping and chill out. As we were due to go into Lennes orchard on the Tuesday we decided to call him to check that we were still on for work so we called him and he said that the fruit was not quite ready but to call back the following Monday and he would try and fit us in. That was a bit of a disappointment however it was better than nothing so we decided to sit around and wait.
Waiting around at the rest area for a week was the most boring thing that you can do. You can’t really sit outside because of the amount of flies yet the temperature is so hot (late 30s every day) you need your doors and windows open. We found some fly nets and put them up inside the doors that are attached by Velcro which helped keep the temperature down and the next days were spent not doing a lot trying to stay cool. At this point there were quite a few French backpackers on the site who would wash their dirty dishes in the toilet sinks which eventually caused the toilets to back up and spill all over the floor.
The site was getting quite messy and we were all growing increasingly impatient at the work situation. Colin and Sarah only needed to sign off twenty days and they went to the local pub down the road in Stanhope and got friendly with the barman who said that he could find work. The barman turned up on the Wednesday to say that he had found us work, Graham and Colin to work doing concrete work and Iliana and Sarah to work on a pig farm. Although we would not be working together we said we would do it just to get some money in and we were told to wait until he called us.
The most excitement that we had that week was one night we were led in bed with the fly net up about to go to sleep and we saw a spider climbing up the net towards the roof. We reached for the death spray (spray which kills insects, you get through tins of it here) and tried to spray the spider. The spider was quick and we sprayed all around the door, under the van, everywhere and at last we managed to kill it (or so we thought). The next day we came back from doing some shopping and Ily went to pick up a packet of crisps off the ground and hidden underneath was what we now think was a white tail spider. Luckily Ily went straight for the death spray and soaked it to death. The thing about the insects here is that you spray them and they fall over and squirm on their backs and then they come back to life. We were taking no chances with this one so Ily smashed it up.
Friday came and we had heard nothing more so we decided to go to the pub to ask what was going on and to have a beer. Pubs here are funny they are like tin roofed buildings and they don’t serve many different beers. The only choice was four X or Carlton Draught. The beers are also served in mini glasses called pots and they are only just over ¼ of a pint and they cost $3:80 each! Everything here seems really expensive.
Sitting down in the pub we attracted the attention of the locals and this led to the locals buying us rounds of drinks so before long the drinking was in full swing. The night was going really well, people were playing pool and poker and we were all having a good time, it made such a difference to get away from the van.
We met this really funny chap whose nickname is “farm”, see pictures below. He was really getting drunk and was trying to explain the rules of football (Aussie Rules) to me as this is one of the most popular sports here, but it made no sense! I would have thought it was rugby or cricket but would appear not as those sports are mostly popular in big towns not in little rural areas like where we were.
Midway through the night the two guys that we met at the pool came in and had a chat and they were inviting us to their Australian Day party which was on the following day (Saturday). It seemed like a genuine offer and we said we would go, apparently they had family going around and it was going to be fun. Before long the least crazy looking one went home and left his mate behind who kept going on about how popular he was and how he could smoke in the bar but no one else blah blah. The strange thing was he kept going on about this Australian Day party and said a couple of times that he was not inviting us to steal our women! Now alarm bells should have gone off in my head at this point but I (Graham) was way too hammered to really notice was this guy was playing at.
It got to about 1am and the pub lights went out and we started to walk out to the van. Ily and Colin went outside first, Ily was driving as had not drunk. As I was walking out I heard some shouting and then Sarah came running past out to Colin and Ily in the car park. It would seem that when the lights had gone out this bloke had tried getting it on with Sarah and she had to push him off!!
Being as drunk as I was I still did not get it until I heard all of the shouting back at the van, this bloke kept trying to explain himself to me but it just could not believe what was going on or I was hearing. Things got tense and I could tell that this guy was getting ready for me to do something by his body language and as everyone was in the van we decided to leave it and drive off. The bloke even had the cheek to try and wind Colin up through the glass door as I was stood directly behind his back. It was all very odd and a bit hic town to be honest, we should have gave him a hiding but probably of got deported so decided to head home.
Week 9 Sat 26th – Fri 4th Feb)
The next day was rough, hangovers all round (apart from ily), 40 degree heat and no wind. It was rather depressing given the events of the previous night and being Australia Day with nothing to do. We waited there for Monday for the whole weekend only going out once to get some shopping hoping that the jobs at Lennes orchard would happen as we had been waiting for nearly two weeks now. One thing was becoming clear to me (Graham) after that night in the pub and that was I was not letting Iliana out of my sight for work, especially not to a random pig farm so the fruit picking together would be the only sensible option.
We went to bed early on Sunday and woke early on the Monday and drove straight to Lennes. It was quite surprising how cold it was in the morning as we had not been getting out of bed before 9 – 10am each morning, we had to dig out our jumpers and trousers. The weather in Victoria is a lot like England in summer in the way that it gets coldish at night and windy and its cold in the morning apart from here the temperatures go a lot higher and it does not rain. We arrived at the orchard and there was already a car of about 6 lads waiting also for work. We were only there about 10 mins when Matthew Lenne (the man I spoke to on the phone) arrived in his car and talked to the group of lads. We heard him say that the fruit was not ready and to come back on the Wednesday. He drove over to us and I said my name which he seemed to recognise and said again that the fruit was not ready but after a little think he said come back tomorrow.
At last good news we thought as he would not bother asking us to come back before the other lads to waste our time surely?
On a bit of a high we all drove into town and got some more supplies and decided again to wait at the rest area. Colin and Sarah on the way back stopped in at a local farmer that they met up the pub to ask for work and were invited back for a lesson in milking cows later that evening. When they got back to the rest area and told us we were a little confused as we thought that they were coming to work with us but it would seem that they don’t fancy doing more fruit picking work and were going to take their chances on the farm.
They went for their lesson and came back looking all happy at they were starting at 4:30am the next morning. Their job was to milk the cows twice a day one at 4:30 – 6am and the same twelve hours later so in effect they were milking twice a day. They had not arranged for any accommodation and were going to stay at the rest area whilst they did their work.
This was a little disappointing for us as we didn’t know whether this would annoy Lenne, however the next day I heard them drive off in the dark at 4:30. We got up at 6:30am and headed to Lennes to be there at 7:30 as requested.
Annoyingly we went to bed early the night before but at midnight we were asleep and were awaken to banging on the rear of our van and someone trying to open the rear door. Before we could react the side door which Graham sleeps next to was ripped open and four / five French guys stood there drunk as hell and they shouted “have you got any wine, we need wine because we are French!.” I could not believe it, they honestly thought that that was a good idea and we would give them wine for free. As they got the message that we did not have anything they asked us for the shower key which we didn’t even have – strange people!
As we turned up we could not see anyone so walked to his shed around the back where he was fixing a motocross bike. He just took one look at us and said the fruit is not ready, they are ok for pickers and to try next week. We were both so angry that this bloke made us wait around for two weeks just to string us along so we walked off needing a new plan to find work.
It was a bit of a low point as we were essentially, after two weeks of waiting back to square one. We called the harvest number again to get the usual no work available. Ily had the idea of driving the small distance down the road to Tatura to look for work as a man in the pub mentioned that it was a good place to look. We drove into the town and could not find anything, on the way back out we saw a sign for Pickworth and Sons Orchard and we thought we would go in and ask. We parked our van up and headed for the shed where a man on a forklift came over and we asked him if there was any work. He said that they were not going to pick for another week and to come back then. We thanked him and started to walk away when another man waved at us to come over to him. We walked over and he introduced himself as Stuart (the owner of the orchard) and said that if we wanted work picking fruit then we could work on his orchard starting tomorrow! We could not believe our luck and not only that but as we had our own van he pointed over to his camp site area and said we could stay there with electric hook up.
We met our new manager called Savette who is Turkish and he showed us around the camp and told us to be ready at 6:20 am in the morning for picking plums. No sooner had he left another chap turned up with a tractor which is ours to drive whilst we are working and showed us where the diesel pump was to fill it up and the other bits and pieces. We also got given new fruit picking bags and we settled into our new camp. Stuart told us that if we wanted there is work here until May so we are really lucky as that will take us up to our 88 days regional work in order for us to qualify for our second year visa.
The facilities on the camp are let’s say basic, however, there are free washing machines, showers, toilets, kitchen and drinking water so we can stay here whilst we work but when we say its basic it really is quite scary. At night you have to keep an eye out for snakes as the Tiger and Brown snake travel through the area at night and if you get bitten by one it’s a hospital job (which costs $1200 dollars from here to take you there only 15k away!)
We have met a great couple on site who travel around in a massive motorhome, they live here for 6 months doing fruit picking and other tasks and then they travel for the rest of the year (mostly hunting for gold because there is lots about). They are called Lloyd and Diane from New Zealand and they are pretty amazing at picking fruit, they can leave us for dead and they are retired in their 60’s!! They have been showing us the ropes and we spend quite a bit of time chatting, they are interesting people and great because what they do is not conventional unlike most people so they have lots of stories to share.
We woke up for our first shift of work on the Wednesday and got up at 5:30, got the 6 litres of water out the fridge, packed our sandwiches and supplies and started up out tractor. At about 6:30 we headed off into the orchard with other tractors inc Lloyd and Diane down to a block of plum trees. Our boss showed us what to do and gave us these massive steel ladders and we started to pick plums. We were strip picking which means that it all had to come off. You pick the fruit into a bag you carry called a “Joey Bag”, named after the kangaroo pouch as it looks similar. The bag can hold about 15 – 20 kgs and when it’s full you tip it into a bin on a trailer pulled by the tractor. The bins can hold about 400kgs of fruit and you fill your bins driving down the row as you strip the trees. We managed to fill 5 bins on the 1st day at $22 dollars awarded per bin for the plums. It took us until about 3:30 by which time we were well and truly knackered.
See below pics of our 1st day and the bin of plums (gives you an idea of the size).
The second day we only managed 4 bins but finished earlier and the fruit was smaller.
The third day we picked Gala apples and that is paid on a rate of $30 dollars a bin and the bins are bigger, we managed to pick 5 bins which was a good result. With the apples we had to pick on colour so they needed to be a nice cherry red colour which sounds easy but can get difficult if the colour in your row decreases as you think they are good enough but they can get rejected.
The majority of the people who do the picking are Asians and they are so small but like lighting when they pick, they were much quicker than us to start off with but as I am writing this we managed 6 bins so getting quicker.
So that takes us up to the end of the week, we will try and jazz up the next week as it just might involve picking fruit and filling bins ! unless something exciting happens like we get bitten by a snake, anyway who knows ? that’s all for now.
We went to bed early on Sunday and woke early on the Monday and drove straight to Lennes. It was quite surprising how cold it was in the morning as we had not been getting out of bed before 9 – 10am each morning, we had to dig out our jumpers and trousers. The weather in Victoria is a lot like England in summer in the way that it gets coldish at night and windy and its cold in the morning apart from here the temperatures go a lot higher and it does not rain. We arrived at the orchard and there was already a car of about 6 lads waiting also for work. We were only there about 10 mins when Matthew Lenne (the man I spoke to on the phone) arrived in his car and talked to the group of lads. We heard him say that the fruit was not ready and to come back on the Wednesday. He drove over to us and I said my name which he seemed to recognise and said again that the fruit was not ready but after a little think he said come back tomorrow.
At last good news we thought as he would not bother asking us to come back before the other lads to waste our time surely?
On a bit of a high we all drove into town and got some more supplies and decided again to wait at the rest area. Colin and Sarah on the way back stopped in at a local farmer that they met up the pub to ask for work and were invited back for a lesson in milking cows later that evening. When they got back to the rest area and told us we were a little confused as we thought that they were coming to work with us but it would seem that they don’t fancy doing more fruit picking work and were going to take their chances on the farm.
They went for their lesson and came back looking all happy at they were starting at 4:30am the next morning. Their job was to milk the cows twice a day one at 4:30 – 6am and the same twelve hours later so in effect they were milking twice a day. They had not arranged for any accommodation and were going to stay at the rest area whilst they did their work.
This was a little disappointing for us as we didn’t know whether this would annoy Lenne, however the next day I heard them drive off in the dark at 4:30. We got up at 6:30am and headed to Lennes to be there at 7:30 as requested.
Annoyingly we went to bed early the night before but at midnight we were asleep and were awaken to banging on the rear of our van and someone trying to open the rear door. Before we could react the side door which Graham sleeps next to was ripped open and four / five French guys stood there drunk as hell and they shouted “have you got any wine, we need wine because we are French!.” I could not believe it, they honestly thought that that was a good idea and we would give them wine for free. As they got the message that we did not have anything they asked us for the shower key which we didn’t even have – strange people!
As we turned up we could not see anyone so walked to his shed around the back where he was fixing a motocross bike. He just took one look at us and said the fruit is not ready, they are ok for pickers and to try next week. We were both so angry that this bloke made us wait around for two weeks just to string us along so we walked off needing a new plan to find work.
It was a bit of a low point as we were essentially, after two weeks of waiting back to square one. We called the harvest number again to get the usual no work available. Ily had the idea of driving the small distance down the road to Tatura to look for work as a man in the pub mentioned that it was a good place to look. We drove into the town and could not find anything, on the way back out we saw a sign for Pickworth and Sons Orchard and we thought we would go in and ask. We parked our van up and headed for the shed where a man on a forklift came over and we asked him if there was any work. He said that they were not going to pick for another week and to come back then. We thanked him and started to walk away when another man waved at us to come over to him. We walked over and he introduced himself as Stuart (the owner of the orchard) and said that if we wanted work picking fruit then we could work on his orchard starting tomorrow! We could not believe our luck and not only that but as we had our own van he pointed over to his camp site area and said we could stay there with electric hook up.
We met our new manager called Savette who is Turkish and he showed us around the camp and told us to be ready at 6:20 am in the morning for picking plums. No sooner had he left another chap turned up with a tractor which is ours to drive whilst we are working and showed us where the diesel pump was to fill it up and the other bits and pieces. We also got given new fruit picking bags and we settled into our new camp. Stuart told us that if we wanted there is work here until May so we are really lucky as that will take us up to our 88 days regional work in order for us to qualify for our second year visa.
The facilities on the camp are let’s say basic, however, there are free washing machines, showers, toilets, kitchen and drinking water so we can stay here whilst we work but when we say its basic it really is quite scary. At night you have to keep an eye out for snakes as the Tiger and Brown snake travel through the area at night and if you get bitten by one it’s a hospital job (which costs $1200 dollars from here to take you there only 15k away!)
We have met a great couple on site who travel around in a massive motorhome, they live here for 6 months doing fruit picking and other tasks and then they travel for the rest of the year (mostly hunting for gold because there is lots about). They are called Lloyd and Diane from New Zealand and they are pretty amazing at picking fruit, they can leave us for dead and they are retired in their 60’s!! They have been showing us the ropes and we spend quite a bit of time chatting, they are interesting people and great because what they do is not conventional unlike most people so they have lots of stories to share.
We woke up for our first shift of work on the Wednesday and got up at 5:30, got the 6 litres of water out the fridge, packed our sandwiches and supplies and started up out tractor. At about 6:30 we headed off into the orchard with other tractors inc Lloyd and Diane down to a block of plum trees. Our boss showed us what to do and gave us these massive steel ladders and we started to pick plums. We were strip picking which means that it all had to come off. You pick the fruit into a bag you carry called a “Joey Bag”, named after the kangaroo pouch as it looks similar. The bag can hold about 15 – 20 kgs and when it’s full you tip it into a bin on a trailer pulled by the tractor. The bins can hold about 400kgs of fruit and you fill your bins driving down the row as you strip the trees. We managed to fill 5 bins on the 1st day at $22 dollars awarded per bin for the plums. It took us until about 3:30 by which time we were well and truly knackered.
See below pics of our 1st day and the bin of plums (gives you an idea of the size).
The second day we only managed 4 bins but finished earlier and the fruit was smaller.
The third day we picked Gala apples and that is paid on a rate of $30 dollars a bin and the bins are bigger, we managed to pick 5 bins which was a good result. With the apples we had to pick on colour so they needed to be a nice cherry red colour which sounds easy but can get difficult if the colour in your row decreases as you think they are good enough but they can get rejected.
The majority of the people who do the picking are Asians and they are so small but like lighting when they pick, they were much quicker than us to start off with but as I am writing this we managed 6 bins so getting quicker.
So that takes us up to the end of the week, we will try and jazz up the next week as it just might involve picking fruit and filling bins ! unless something exciting happens like we get bitten by a snake, anyway who knows ? that’s all for now.
Week 10 Sat 5th – Fri 12th Feb)
So for the last week we worked picking fruit, we have got a little faster as the days have gone on and our takings for our first full week was $880 dollars. We worked a short day on Sat morning picking heart shaped plums so they could sell them for Valentine’s Day and that was good as we filled a bin every half hour but we ran out of fruit by mid – day so only got 5 bins.
Our working day comprises of getting up at 5:30am which is hard and then quickly getting our stuff together to get to whatever orchard we are picking on by 6:30. We then start picking just before 7am and can finish anytime from 1pm – 4pm. The weather this week has been pretty unbearable, the mid – summer heat of Victoria is an absolute killer and going up and down ladders carrying weight is ok whilst the temperature is around 20 – 30 degrees but when the temps go up above 30 to the late 30s or low 40s you sweat so much you need to keep drinking water.
At night we put about 6 litres of water in the freezer and take that to work with our sandwiches in a cooler bag which lasts us for the day but on a couple of really hot days we have nearly ran out of water. The problem with the hot temperatures here are that when get back to the van and park up in the shade for the night there is no wind and quite often we have temperature of 36 – 38 degrees at 9 – 10 pm and it does not go away all night. Another thing which catches us out is that the hottest part of the day is from 2pm – 4pm not like England so you think that you have got over the worst of it and then it just keeps getting warmer (by the way the temperatures are taken in the shade, in the sun it feels much hotter).
We attach below some photos of the lovely camp which we have to stay in. Going for a shower or going to the toilet can be a bit of a hell raising experience but as of yet we are yet to see anything bad (although as I type this we have had quite a bit of unwanted action which we update next week). The luxury shower facility is fed by water from the channel which is an open water channel and although it appears clear when running through the shower if you put it into a bucket its yellow in colour! As nothing out here in the more rural areas is on mains water our drinking supply of water comes from a large black outside storage tank which collects its water from the roof of the rather large packing shed when it rains. Apparently it’s much cleaner than the water which is provided on the mains in the towns around here. We hope that the tank does not run dry or we will have to start buying water, apparently I you run the channel water tap for an hour until the mud stops coming out its safe to drink but we are not feeling that brave.
Our working day comprises of getting up at 5:30am which is hard and then quickly getting our stuff together to get to whatever orchard we are picking on by 6:30. We then start picking just before 7am and can finish anytime from 1pm – 4pm. The weather this week has been pretty unbearable, the mid – summer heat of Victoria is an absolute killer and going up and down ladders carrying weight is ok whilst the temperature is around 20 – 30 degrees but when the temps go up above 30 to the late 30s or low 40s you sweat so much you need to keep drinking water.
At night we put about 6 litres of water in the freezer and take that to work with our sandwiches in a cooler bag which lasts us for the day but on a couple of really hot days we have nearly ran out of water. The problem with the hot temperatures here are that when get back to the van and park up in the shade for the night there is no wind and quite often we have temperature of 36 – 38 degrees at 9 – 10 pm and it does not go away all night. Another thing which catches us out is that the hottest part of the day is from 2pm – 4pm not like England so you think that you have got over the worst of it and then it just keeps getting warmer (by the way the temperatures are taken in the shade, in the sun it feels much hotter).
We attach below some photos of the lovely camp which we have to stay in. Going for a shower or going to the toilet can be a bit of a hell raising experience but as of yet we are yet to see anything bad (although as I type this we have had quite a bit of unwanted action which we update next week). The luxury shower facility is fed by water from the channel which is an open water channel and although it appears clear when running through the shower if you put it into a bucket its yellow in colour! As nothing out here in the more rural areas is on mains water our drinking supply of water comes from a large black outside storage tank which collects its water from the roof of the rather large packing shed when it rains. Apparently it’s much cleaner than the water which is provided on the mains in the towns around here. We hope that the tank does not run dry or we will have to start buying water, apparently I you run the channel water tap for an hour until the mud stops coming out its safe to drink but we are not feeling that brave.