New Years in OZ- Ringing in 2013- Monteray Style!

I wont lie- I was very excited to get out of Australia and return back to Asia, but in all honesty, after living with 20 other amazing backpackers and forming some great friendships, I almost didnt want to leave.

 One of the best memories I have/ kind of don't have, was New Years Eve on the farm (which was dubbed 'Monteray') As another breath-taking sunset fell on us, we took it all in and got prepared for a decidedly sloppy night on the farm. A few days before the event, my friend Lydia (from France) and I were making plans for the party and deciding what liquor to buy. I mentioned the classic drink: The Caesar. To my shock her, or anyone else for that matter had never tried one, and didnt even know what it was! I took the liberty of introducing everyone, with what ingredients I could scrounge up from Chinchilla's local IGA. Now, believe it or not, Australia does not have Clamato or any Clam/tomato juice, so I had to make due with some V8 type juice, which is no comparison, but hey! You make due when youre in no-mans land!

i

 PRE-DRINKS!
The Caesars were a hit-a little too much! We ran out of plain vodka and decided to use lemon vodka and yes..ew, vanilla vodka..but hey! Its better than Goon! (a cheap boxed wine popular in Australia, which I dont even think has any grapes in it, I heard it is made from shellfish and other nasty ingredients..) One thing lead to another and soon enough we were passing around the 'boxhead' in "Kings".

We finished the night by walking down the road with a cooler of Corona and limes ( pitch black Australian road in the middle of the outback= super creepy!!)... but we made it and set up a fire down by the river! I remember walking down there with Marie from France and WOW did we have so much fun...lol...long story!

After this point I cant say I remember that much, except for the midnight hugs n kisses, the guys pulling a massive turtle out of the river, Jack being wasted drunk and having to go home early and me getting in trouble for dancing on a car....

A Very Ozzy Christmas in Queensland, Australia

MmMmM...

Champagne &

Pavolva!

Elaines creative decorations!

My favourite German couple- Jan-Felix and Elaine

Lydia, Moi et Marie

Dori and Lydia

15 Backpackers, One Hot Australian Day, Lots of Cold Beers!

Represent, World-wide! England, Ireland, Hong Kong, Belgium, New Zealand, Germany, Australia, South Korea, Canada, and France! WHAT UP!?

After grading onions and harvesting watermelons on the farm in Queensland, Australia for a few weeks the winter holidays were creeping ever closer. When we were hired, we all knew we were expected to work through the Christmas and New Years holiday, but as the holiday got closer the word on the street was that we might actually get a day or two off for Christmas! I, myself dont make much of Christmas these days- traveling sort of does that to you. It would be nice to be with the rest of your family for dinner and so on, but all in all, its not a big deal. Would I trade in traveling to go back for a few days? No.
Still, when I found out that we had 2 days off and there would be free beers for us waiting back at the onion shed... I was pretty happy! And so was everyone else, it was a great surprise. It had been a long day in the Australian sun and a few cold beers would do the trick!

Dickson from Hong Kong and Marie from France, 2 amazing people!

Lydia from France et moi! Man I miss her so much!!

The lot of us! Now theres some hard-working backpackers

Working in Queensland, Australia: Where the Watermelons Grow

The beginning of another beautiful sunrise

I woke up everyday around 4 am, which would give me just enough time to see a beautiful sunrise, wash up, have breakfast, pack a lunch and be out of the door for 5:15 am. Then around 15 backpackers including myself would hop into a rickety old van that could barely hold us all and drove 15 or 30 minutes down some lazy, red dusty back roads until we reached a exspanse of melon fields.

We made sure to always bring  a few liters of water and a good lunch because once we were out in the field there was nowhere to fuel up or go to the bathroom for that matter(even popping a squat was out of the question as there are no trees or grass in the fields) Just flat, red sand on the horizon. Anyhow, somehow the girls made due!

Once we got to the general area of the field everyday, a tractor towing a huge truck bed would meet us out there. The bed is equipped with 2 booms that attach at either side of the bed and these have conveyor belts on them. The bed is also equipped with a conveyor belt (we are sitting on it in the picture below to the left)<----

So how does it work? Once the tractor/truck bed combo is in the proper row, another tractor comes to remove the booms from their storage place on the side of the bed and assembles them to run perpendicular from the bed itself. Then the harvesters walk in a line behind the boom, picking any melons which are ripe and ready. They simply throw the melons on the boom, which then moves down the boom's conveyor belt, which is then transferred to the belt on the bed. The melons then move directly to us, the packers.
Once the melons move their way down the belt, it was our job to sort the melons by size and color depending what the farmer wants. For example, medium light green in one box, medium dark green in another. 

Melon pickers walk barefoot to make sure not to crush any melons

Sometimes youve gotta make your own fun!

<3 Lydia!

 Usually we would work from 530 am-1030am and then break for lunch under what shade was still left under the roof of the truck bed.

Then we would continue on until the afternoon, sometime between 130 and 330 pm. Some days were okay, reasonable heat.. and they passed by quickly. Other days were brutally hot, stifling, you broke a sweat by 8 am and didnt stop sweating until the shift was over! Those days passed so sloooowwwlyyyy.. it as if theyd never end. Luckily most days I worked with Lydia, my bestie on the farm:P Her and I just clicked from the day we met, and we spent most work days just laughing our asses off! She was like my personal stand-up comedian for 8 hours a day, and a great friend to me. Im really glad I had the chance to meet her and cant wait to meet up with her in Asia, (or perhaps in her homeland of France one day?) We both preferred sorting onions to packing watermelons, but working alongside eachother helped pass the days and weeks on the back of that truck bed. Overall, packing watermelons is not the worst job in the world, but I cant say I miss it. I do however miss all the great people I met on that farm. :)

Farming in Australia: The Onion Craze!

My amazing friend Lydia (France) goes onion-crazy!

For my first two weeks working on the farm I graded onions with a few other girls, 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Some days we graded tonnes and tonnes of onions-literally!

The onions are dumped into a huge machine (in the back of the picture to the left) which then sends the onions down a conveyor on rollers. Several girls stand at the first section sorting out any bad onions that really stand out, as well as onions missing their shell. These are classified as "seconds" (Grade 2 onions)

The girls and Dickson waiting for the next batch

After the girls pick out the obviously bad ones, the rest filter down through another set of rollers where I am standing. My job was to sort through the remaining onions before they are sent to be bagged. It
was kind of a long, boring job because you have to stand in one spot for 10-12 hours and my station only requires one person so most days I worked alone. It also got really really hot in the onion shed- one day reached 43 degrees Celcius, which was really horrible and made me nauseous.

 Ill never look at onions the same again!

I just soaked my head and clothes in water constantly to keep going, but it was still pretty bad. LUCKILY this only accounted for a few brutal days, most of the days were relatively easy with hot but not dangerously hot temperatures.

In the end it was great because I was raking in 200$ a day and saving most of it! The dongar where I was living only cost me 80$ a week to rent so I was chuffed about that. The onion craze lasted about two weeks and after that we were set to work in the watermelon fields! More on that coming soon..:)

The final stage- at the onion bagging station

The Backpackin Life In The Outback

Yikes!

A cute little visitor

Not the typical pet! This little piggy went to Monteray..

Dori admiring the sunset, always beautiful in the outback

Caravan living! My "neighbors" Lydia and Marie from France <3

One morning before work<3

Debbie (Scotland), Dori (South Korea), Me (Canada), Elaine (Germany)

Love these two! Sara and Ronja from Germany

The originals!

Working in Australia: Welcome to Camp "Monteray"

The red dirt road leading to Monteray

After working 3 shit jobs in Australia (that never paid me what I was entitled), I finally found one that didn't completely rip me off. After going one month without a job in Australia (ouch! to my bank account) I found out about this particular job which was inland from Brisbane, Queensland and approximately 40 km outside of a tiny town called Chinchilla. The work? I would be grading onions for one month- not my ideal job, or the way I pictured working in Australia but hey- cash is king.

I set out on the first Greyhound bus to little Chinchilla, and the next day I was getting picked up by an Irish backpacker who would drive me 40 km into the middle of nowhere until we arrived at the base camp where I would live for the next 30 days. I found about 15 other backpackers living at the base camp nick-named Monteray. Some friends, couples and single travelers were living together in caravans and dongars (which are basically caravans without wheels.)

Inside the kitchen/lounge

The dongars

The communal kitchen

There was also a shared kitchen in a separate building, as well as a separate dongar with bathrooms and free laundry facilities inside- bonus. The camp was really basic, but was relatively clean and provided the necessities unlike some of the other farms I lived on in Australia, so you can see how I appreciated it. A few perks were a tv, pool table and fire pit. Needless to say, the other backpackers and myself made the best of it, worked hard through December and January, but had a great holiday season too. It was an amazing experience because I made friends from France, Hong Kong, Germany, Sweden, New Zealand, South Korea, Ireland and many other countries! I shared a dongar (air-conditioned, thankfully!) with a sweet South Korean girl nicknamed Dori and couldnt have asked for a better roomie. It was awesome to be surrounded by so many other people my age, doing what I was doing and with similar interests.
Pictures to come! 

Similar Stories:
The Backpackin Life in the Outback
Australian Working Holiday Visa
Finding Work in Australia as a Backpacker
30 Things Ive Learned About Australia

Clovely Grove: Sacred Ground

Macadamia Trees!

In order to learn more about Australians, their culture and way of life, Scott and I decided to do some "Wwoofing". W.W.O.O.F, stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. (To learn more or become a member, click here.) 

How Wwoofing Works:
The basic principle of WWOOF is that you volunteer to work on an organic farm in exchange for room and board. It is up to you to seek a farm particular to your interests and speak with the farmers directly. I have done a lot of wwoofing in Canada, but it was all new to Scott. We decided to give it a go, and called "Clovely Grove" just outside of Byron Bay, New South Wales. A few days later My Roaming Backpack was unpacking for a few days at a Macadamia Plantation!

Clovely Grove:
Clovely Grove is a beautiful oasis on a Macadamia farm. Originally the land was over-run by invasive species, but Scott (the owner/our wwoof host) and his friend Mark removed them and replaced them by introducing native species. Only eight years later, the property has been transformed- the native species have flourished in their habitat. Yet, there is still work to be done. Mark picked us up from The Arts Factory and explained to us that we would be helping with the introduction of more new species and take part in the regeneration process of Clovely Grove.

I learned how to identify a fruitless grapefruit tree! ( See the leaves in my hand in above picture.) and I saw the tallest Bird of Paradise Ive seen yet- must have been atleast 20 ft. tall! But to top it all off, I watched a cow jump over a fence, LITERALLY. (Sorry, no pic!)

  In the meantime, our host, Scott was great. He welcomed us into his home immediately and went out of his way to make sure he showed us all the attractions in the area. Just to name a few we checked out Tea Tree Lake in Lennox Head, Boulder Beach, Sharpe Beach Belongil Beach, and the famous Lighthouse. 

Our wwoof host releasing a python after rehabilitating it/ Me cleaning the deck/ Scott dipping the chooks feet in Linseed oil to prevent parasites- this was pretty amusing to watch considering they had to catch the chooks first!

Brekkie & Fresh "Apple-Apple Juice" (Green-Apple & Pineapple)

Breakfast at Clovely Grove was always a highlight: fresh free-range eggs from the chooks, fried tomatoes and mushrooms soaked in butter, and freshly-squeezed juice, hells ya! Dinners were always fun too, and Scott's friend, Mark was an amazing cook! After dinner we would watch footie, or have some good laughs watching ridiculous Aussie reality shows like "The X-Factor" or something-rather, "The Farmer Picks A Wife"? One night we spent hours on end watching Australian music videos on youtube, and the following night Canadian music. It was great to show each other some of our favs, except I think we may have scared Scott a little with "Oh Canada" by Classified and "Rock you" by Helix. Oops! :P 

                               Australian Band, Goanna, Singing "Solid Rock" 
                                     a song about the aboriginal conflict

Goodbye New South Wales
Only a few days into our stay I was surprised with a call from an employment agency I had contacted a few weeks prior. I was being offered a position with a good salary in Queensland, about 3 hours away. Accepting the job would mean cutting my wwoofing experience short, and not being able to help restore the land at Clovely Grove. 

However, it also meant being able to potentially extend the overall reach of my travels. My flight to South Africa in 2013 has already been purchased, but I would also like to visit New Zealand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao, possibly India, and lately Ive been dreaming of Mongolia and Russia. Keeping my final goals in mind, I decided it was best to accept the job and carry on to Queensland. Scott (my travel-mate) and Scott (my wwoof host) were both very understanding. We enjoyed the relaxing weekend together before they both dropped me off at the bus station in Lismore. We went our separate ways, them back to Byron, me, Queensland bound. 

Thank you Scott (and Mark) for making me feel welcome and sharing your life :) 

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Destination Byron Bay: 2 Days of Travel: Day 2

      Australias: Rain-forest to desert

After an over-night rest stop in a comfy bed, I woke up in Sydney refreshed and ready for Part 2! I met Scott in the lobby of the hostel and we raced down to Central Station, grabbing some Solo's on the way down (my new favorite drink in Australia).
 Oh, Central Station. It feels like I have been there a million times! Its probably more like 10, but as the Thai would say, "same same". During the next 12 hours we rode up the eastern coast experiencing all sorts of landscapes. There was a lot of what we have already seen so much of: dried up flat fields stretching for what seems like an eternity. And ofcourse theres the fields of green wheat and gold canola. 

Luck would have it that we happened to have been assigned seats in front of the most dysfunctional family in New South Wales, apparently. This single mother was a psycho and her and her 3 spawn children terrorized the entire train for 11hours and 59 minutes of a 12 hour train ride. By the end of the line, all of the passengers had changed seats to sit as far away from this family as possible. I spent most of the ride trying to block them out using my earplugs. Originally, I brought the plugs to block out snoring people at hostels, but they have turned out to be useful for all sorts of situations!

 I did manage to sneak in a few naps despite the chaos. The children, probably between ages 2 and 6, whined, screamed and kicked the back of my seat pretty much the entire ride. The mother screamed, swore and threatened to hit them or take away their I-pods. It was so annoying. I felt like turning to her and saying "FAIL." Im pretty sure she knew she was getting a lot of stink eye from the other passengers. Anyways, enough about that!
 
On the positive side there was falafels on the train, and tea bags containing coffee. Also a nice stretch of rainforest when we passed through the Blue Mountains! Some of these beautiful mountains met the Pacific Ocean. We met a really friendly Outback Jack who told us what gave the Blue Mountains their name. Apparently it is because of the blue haze that hangs above the eucalyptus trees during mid-day!

My favorite part of the trip was when we were getting really close to Byron Bay and there were valleys of banana trees everywhere! Banana trees as far as the eye can see. From a distance you could see bags hanging from all of the trees and it was like little cloud puffs suspended in rows in the air. Farmers hang the bags over the bundles of bananas and wait for them to ripen. Once they are ready, all harvesters have to do is chop the bags down because theyre already packaged. I never knew that! 

 Arriving in Casino we transferred to another bus which took us on a one hour bus ride into Byron. We finally showed up around 9:30 pm and found a hippie-van taxi to drive us to The Arts Factory, a really famous backpacker hostel built by hippies in the 70's. We would be spending the night in a teepee....New story and pics coming soon!