Keep Walking On

It was the evening of July 19, 2014, more than 6 weeks after I arrived at Australia, with almost no luck on whatever things I did – Lucas and I were leaving Wallaville and on our way to Bundaberg, where he had been working and staying for some months earlier.

Bundaberg is a town in Queensland, famous for farm work but also notorious for scams and illegal jobs. There are numerous working hostels, shared houses, and lots of backpackers from all over the world. The working hostel we stayed at was called Picky’s House (it changed owner and name not long after I left). It was run by Japanese and 99% of the backpackers were Japanese.

And so, let’s do things in the Japanese way – which I have to say, I’m not a big fan of it. They’re systematic and have strict compliance to rules (even the weird ones). But good thing was, we all got our jobs arranged, and day off too – if you file a written application in advance (what?!). Well but that’s fine, I got my first day off by just running into the office and said “I need a day off tomorrow” and it worked.

Jobs were arranged really systematically, and you’d get your paid slip every week. Every night at 8pm you could take a look at the notice board in the dining room, telling you what, when and where you’re going to work the next day. Basically, no matter which farm you’re going to, the call time was either 4:45am or 5am. And they said you had to gather at the car park 10 minutes before your call time – so that you could get yourself freezing for 10 minutes before you could get on the car, brilliant.

Normally we arrived at the farm in 30 to 45 minutes, while most farm work actually started at around 6am when the sun came up – except for picking sweet potatoes which would start even in the dark. And so we got some more “chill out” time again after we arrived at the farm. But I will never forget about circling around the fire made by burning paper boards and even buckets to keep us warm, while watching the sky change colours when the sun eventually rose.

I started working the next day after arrival, which was a Sunday. Basically if you didn’t request for a day off, you could work every day. I went with Lucas to Tony’s farm for picking capsicums. Lucas had worked for Tony before and he was already “promoted” to be the bucket boy and also work in the packing shed – which meant he didn’t have to work on the field under the sun or rain, and most importantly, he’s paid by hour. So Lucas has been telling me to get Tony’s or his wife’s attention – if they liked me, they would pick me to work in the shed (they only needed 2 girls to do packing, and you could actually feel the competition among people).

I never thought that I still have to pull a smiling face like what I did as a publicist in Hong Kong. I’m never good at pleasing people or getting attention. But Lucas was right, getting people to like you can be the key to get what you want/need. This is right even when you’re working on a freaking farm. Lucky enough, Lucas told me on the first day that Tony liked me, because he thought I was pretty and he liked skinny girls… and whether or not it’s related, plus I know Lucas has been saying nice things about me, I got into the packing shed the next week. I hated packing, but I got hourly paid of AUD$13 (after tax). If you think this is shit money, I tell you what’s worse.

On my first day of work, we worked 10 hours and I picked 38 buckets of capsicums – which made me the 3rd fastest picker (and the fastest among girls), while the fastest boy picked 40 (boom, this was my way to get attention, in the hard way. But farmers always like the fast pickers, that’s for sure). But while we’re paid AUD$0.9/bucket, my paid that day was AUD$34.2. Our rent was AUD$175/week (as far as I know, after switching owner, the rent there is now AUD$120/week… l did have “luck”).

Some simple calculation and you’ll know, after paying for rent and food, not much was left. Not to say, picking 38 buckets in 10 hours was crazy. I was pretty sure I was not going to pick as fast after that day, because I’ve got really bad pain on my back and knees after bending and kneeling and carrying heavy buckets. Other girls picked much slower than me and I always asked them how the hell they’re still staying there while what they earned could only barely cover the rent. But most of them stayed there for at least 3 months so that they could get the 88 days signed off for applying the 2nd year visa.

On the first week I was mainly picking capsicums on Tony’s farm, and zucchinis and tomatoes on some other farms. From the second week I started to work in Tony’s packing shed, and occasionally picking, or even planting, mostly capsicums, chilli and sweet potatoes.

Most of the farms in Bundaberg are growing capsicums, chilli, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, strawberries and sweet potatoes – which means all picking jobs involve a lot of bending and kneeling and you can get really nasty pain in your muscles and joints which could last for a long time. I had to use massage cream to help relieve the pain so that I could sleep better at night, and I still felt pain on my knees in the coming 2 to 3 months before I was fully recovered (well, maybe I’m too old for this).

No matter what, this 3-week farm work and backpacking experience was still what I have longed for, especially after the not-so-pleasant experience in Wallaville. And the Japanese backpackers were freaking amazing people too! Though I got really fed up with the tedious packing job and tired of laughing along with Tony’s repetitive dirty jokes, the time I spent with the Japanese & HK backpackers back in the hostel, as well as plenty of quality alone time, were truly unforgettable memories that I would still smile at when I recall them today.

I left Bundaberg after 3 weeks because I’ve already got a job in Hervey Bay, a coastal city just across Fraser Island. It’s a no-paid job of which I only had to work for a few hours in the morning for house-keeping and get free accommodation in return. I got this arranged when I was jobless in Wallaville. So I’ve actually got everything planned – 3 more weeks in Hervey Bay and then I’d be off to Fraser Island, and then continued my journey along Gold Coast and down to Sydney! Stay tuned if you want to know more about working for accommodation in Australia.