Back to Byron

Get a cuppa, sit down, get comfy and take a deep breath - this is a long one! 

It's been a long time since I wrote, as my life's been flipped, turned upside down. The last few weeks have been amazing. I left the Fruitshack and headed to Sydney, where I caught up with the beautiful David. Seeing him again made me realise how much I had missed him. I met him in Kings Cross where he’s living, mostly so I could get one of the amazing curry wraps we had on Christmas Day. He’s working at the Opera Bar so we walked through the botanical gardens to get there just in time for the sunset.

Spending just a few days in Sydney rekindled my love for it. When I lived there for 4 months, the spark died and all I noticed were the stressed people and the busy streets and expensive shops. After initially freaking out at the sheer number of people (I'd been living on a farm with max. population around 15 remember), I started noticing all the quirky alleys, interesting street art, music and greenery.

And then I finally travelled onwards to Byron Bay where my gorgeous Sebastian was waiting for me in his new beast, the Nissan Pathfinder that we will be road tripping in soon. He took me back to the farm he his working on, and though I didn’t see anything other than a possum that night, the next morning I awoke to discover I was in paradise.

Greg’s farm is stunning. It’s set at the top of a hill about 20km inland, with a view over the valleys below that reaches almost to the coast. His house is surrounded by wonderful smelling jasmine trees, thyme, hibiscus and palm trees, and there’s even a bamboo forest down the hill. 

He mostly grows custard apples, the weirdest looking fruit I ever saw, as well as lemons, a few oranges and pumpkins, and there’s a well stocked vegetable and herb garden (which only occasionally houses snakes…!). He has a little stall on the road where he leaves his offerings and people pay into a little honesty box.

Max and Sebbe took me to the stunning Minyon Falls.

And a few days later, Greg took us all to Mt Warning, the remnants of a volcano that erupted 50,000 years ago. The walk up was through breathtaking rainforest – and Greg put up a fast pace making it even more breathtaking! The top 200m or so was a steep climb with the aid of a steel chain. And the view from the top was absolutely incredible. As well as the view underneath the platform that surrounded the peak – a little bandicoot snuffling around.

But the most amazing part of the day was before we even started walking. In the car park I looked up and saw Bri, my gorgeous Australian friend who I worked and lived with in America! Completely by chance. It was unreal. Greg, who’d already started walking towards the mountain thought I’d stood on a snake by how loud we both squealed!! She only lives about an hour north of here so I am going to go and stay with her next week, and I cannot wait!

 I moved into a hostel in Byron Bay and I’m discovering my inner hippie. There’s lots of dreadlocks and baggy pants and yoga. And no one here wears shoes. I’m staying at The Art Factory which is full of creative people. There’s music being played everywhere, guitars, steel drums, and the Didge Pit where you can learn to play and make a didgeridoo. And lots of hulahooping, fire sticks and poi – the swinging balls; it’s incredible what these people can do!! There are teepees, giant gypsy caravan style dorm rooms, tents and my lakeside cottage.

And by 'lakeside' they mean 'swampside'. It has a deck that looks out on the swamp and the jungle behind it, as well as it’s own little kitchen and 5 little bunk beds for 10 of us girls. It’s a lovely quiet area with space to breathe and relax. The patch of grass out the front is where the yoga happens, so I don't have to travel far.








And it’s surrounded by water dragons. There’s maybe 20 or 30 who live around the swamp. They’re not afraid of people and will happily sit next to you and soak in the sun. It’s a bit like having a funky looking cat. I’m really enjoying just sitting with a cup of tea and my book on the deck, slowing down after a long 4 months on the farm.







I’m doing yoga every day and taking some me time to just sit on the beach or falaffal around and do whatever takes my fancy– after all I am on vacation! Some days are beautiful and sunny and warm; perfect beach and exploring days. Others are much cooler and grey and drizzly; perfect for curling up with my book and a cup of tea. Unfortunately the surf has not been very good the last few days, so I’ve not been in the water yet, but I’m gunning for a good, warm day soon so I can get back into the waves.

I’ve climbed up to the lighthouse a couple of times, it’s got the most amazing view of the bay, the whales passing by and the sunset. It's almost unreal how you can look out at  200degrees+ of horizon!

Sometimes Seb, and maybe Max, will take a day off and we’ll go and explore the local area. We found Lake Ainsworth again, the tea tree lake that mom and I discovered on our road trip.

On a drive up the coast Seb and I stopped at a lookout and spent the day watching the whales pass by on their migration back south with their calves. They were maybe 3-400m away, except one who came maybe 100m from the cliff where we sat. It was unbelievable. They are so big! When they rise out of the water to breach and smash back down the splash goes so high!! That’s how you spot where they are and then you see the enormous grey body underneath.

And then we found Café Sebastian, so obviously we had to stop there for coffee (and by ‘coffee’ I mean ‘chai lattes’ – well Seb had a ‘chai dirty latte’ chai tea AND coffee).

Max leaves the farm in a few days; his regional days will be complete and he’s ready for a bit of an adventure. Seb still has a month or more to do, so I am really hoping that I can take his place on Greg’s farm. He’s a bit sceptical about having a couple there, but Seb is attempting to talk him around. If not, I will go and stay with Bri and make a new plan. So I’m a little bit in limbo, but it’s a good place to limbo in.  

The End of an Era

Well it's all change again.

I'm writing this from Sydney, as I have finally left the Fruitshack!!

The last few weeks were kinda fun. The most exciting news is that I am now a Hollywood A Lister. Just kidding, but I did make an appearance on Australian breakfast TV show, Sunrise. They filmed a live segment about Sumo Mandarins, a variety of mandarins grown only in Leeton. I was just an extra, picking in the background and throwing mandarins in the air, but hey, I was on TV =]

The day before I left we got the fire pit going and I learned how to make stick bread. It's incredible. You make a simple bread dough then knot it around a big stick and toast it over the fire. After 10 minutes you twist it off the stick, which leaves a hole down the middle of the bread which you fill with jam. It is delicious!

And then on my final night the sunset was the most beautiful I have seen yet!

So finally, after 4 and a half months and picking over 31 tonnes of citrus fruits, I am back in the real world and on the move again! I caught a bus from Leeton to Sydney yesterday which took 9 hours and 30 minutes. But it was an incredibly beautiful drive through miles and miles of farms and hills. I even saw kangaroos from the bus.

Michael and Debbie, my boss and his wife, took me to the bus stop and waved me off. And Debbie baked me cookies that were still warm when she gave them to me. They are such lovely people, I am really sad to leave them.

Now that I'm back in Sydney, things are weird! There are so many people!! I forgot how busy the real world is. And I also forgot what it felt like to be warm - I am just wearing a tshirt after months of jumper, jacket and scarf!! And to be able to buy food within a minute in any direction, what is that about?! I'm used to walking 40minutes to get to a store, then 40minutes back to actually make anything.  But a step off the bus and there's 3 cafes just calling to me!

Just to share, I have found HEAVEN in a bakery called The Dough Collective. They do so many different delicious breads and rolls. For example, Kidney bean and walnut scroll, Pumpkin and sweet potato and cream cheese knot, Mixed bean and cream cheese roll, Gagnam crown (Korean kimchi and cream cheese - Oh My God!!). And then there's all kinds of fruit or cheese or chocolate breads, even Mocha and walnut rolls! I've possibly spent all the money I made on the farm already…

ANYWAY, back to the important thing, Moving On.

I'm excited to see my friend David this afternoon. He's working in the Opera House bar now, so I'll head down there with him after we get some lunch together. And then tomorrow I am back to travelling. I catch a train at 7am which takes me up to Byron Bay where I will be reunited with the beautiful boy who is waiting for me there. I feel like a little kid on Christmas Eve!!!

Finishing up at the Fruitshack

Things are winding up for me at the Fruitshack. I’ve finished pruning my grape vines, finished the final order of valencias and I’ve finished my 88 days required to get a 2^nd year visa, woohoo!

But I’m still here. I haven’t let the farm just yet. Picking oranges is not a very lucrative job – and when I say ‘not very’ I mean ‘completely awful’. Just as my days were ending Marcello’s pickers began harvesting his mandarin crop. He has over 200acres of farmland, and around 600 mandarin trees. Which is around about 400 bins of fruit which all need to be packed by hand. So I’ve stuck around to help him do that because I like Marcello, and he is paying me by the hour.

The days are long, 7am – 6pm, so there’s no time to do anything in the evenings except shower, cook, eat and fall into bed ready to get up at 6am tomorrow. But that’s good, because long days means lots of hours which means lots of $!

The time goes quickly, running around in a kind of semi-organised chaos. I enjoy it, rushing around and keeping busy. But it’s quite frustrating with a guy who has been there for a long time always aiming to remind you of his superiority by interveining when you are in the middle of doing something, under the guise of ‘helping’. And Marcello’s father, Mick, a 65yr old Italian man, is struggling to let go of his farming life, even though Marcello and his brother Dom run the place now. He is a lovely guy with a lot of jokes and long winding stories, but he likes to boss people around and tell them they are doing things wrong.

I’ve been unofficially promoted so Mick does not like me to just work the chutes where we pack the mandarins into boxes and then stack them on the pallets, but he wants me to man the biggest chutes which pour into huge 2x2m  bins. I make sure the right sizes go into the bins, then pull the mounds of mandarins around to level them out. Some bins need to be flat so they can be stack, and some mounded to later be taken out and packed by hand in a 3x3 pattern. When that’s slow I like to help on the smaller chutes because they often get backed up, and it’s fun hopping from one to the other, a crazy dance of people weaving in and out of one another. Or I’ll carry stacks of empty boxes from the other side of the shed, or empty out buckets of split or ugly fruit – the ugly/marked fruit gets sold at ½ price, it’s not just thrown away, phew. But after a while Mick will always yell at me to come back, even if he is looking after that section himself. Or he’ll walk over and say ‘I’ll do it’ and push me out of the way. The key to dealing with him, I’ve discovered, is to say ‘ok’ and either continue what I’m doing, or walk away and start doing something else.

The good thing, or perhaps it’s a bad thing, is that there is a constant stream of tea and biscuit breaks!

In a crazy turn of events, I had my 25^th birthday. It was a beautiful warm day where I was pruning in the sunshine. And I came back to the shack to a surprise party in the shed. The girls had got me a cake and Michael had brought 3 bottles of wine. Jenny had done a postcard painting of the orange trees and everyone signed the back, and I had a gorgeous hamper of chocolates and cookies and Baileys from my wonderful poppa. Throughout the week more cards and parcels arrived, so my birthday stretched out for ages and I felt so special.

The other night Michael wanted to burn some branches so we had a fire in the fire pit Marcello made years ago from an old washing machine drum. And the weather is picking up, though it is still horrendously cold in the early mornings, in the day we’re getting up to around 15degrees now.

But I am very excited to leave. I met somebody. A German boy, Sebastian. He’s the happiest person I ever met, and he makes me very happy too. He’s traveling with Max, the boyfriend of my gay Liverpudlian friend David, and they were both at the Fruitshack for 6 weeks before heading off to Byron Bay where they already had farm work planned.

Now he has left I really miss him, and this place is changed for me. I am heading up to Byron to be with him again, and when they have finished their 88 days, we are going to travel and see what this beautiful country has to offer. I can’t wait for the next adventure.

The Latest Adventures in Fruitshacker Life

I'm still living at the Fruitshack on my orange farm, and things are very busy here. I haven't posted anything in so long because I haven't had a day off in over 2 weeks! Since I last posted I have picked Valencia and Naval oranges and mandarins, pruned grapevines and packed more mandarins. Today is my first day off in a very long time, and I only received it because everyone went out in town last night and the boss messaged us all to say 'If you go out tonight, don't work tomorrow'. So this morning I slept until midday and I feel better than I have in ages.

It got very cold here recently. Temperatures were at 0 degrees in the mornings - very difficult to get out of bed at 6am and into the fields! It's been frosty a lot, I didn't realise that happened over here! It means that for the first few hours of work your fingers and toes just sting! And a hot shower after work makes your fingers feel white hot in the heat.

As the frost melted, it just got muddy.

Mandarins

I've been picking mandarins. It's different to oranges because you have to cut them from the tree with teeny secateurs instead of just pulling them. It takes a lot longer, so you can only fill one bin a day instead of 7 or 8 like we do with oranges. The trees are a lot smaller which means we have to use a different type of ladder. This one is much scarier, as instead of leaning it against the tree, you swing the third leg into a sort of tripod and dig it into the mud. 

Meet the Hunstman!

Huntsman spiders like mandarins. It's a good job I spent so long in Vermont getting used to the big guys, because these fellas are pretty hefty. And close! There were at least 3 occasions when they were running around on me. Twice I picked up an orange with one of these on to have him run around my hand and up my arm. 

Packing

 I've been doing more mandarin packing too, on the Mallamace family farm. Marcello runs the whole things, with his brother Dominic and his dad Mick who is a cheeky old chap who likes to shout. And Momma Mallamace brings the tea and cookies whenever we have a break, in true Italian fashion.


 First we make boxes to pack the mandarins in before they are shipped off to Sydney market. I have to restrain myself from building a giant fort with all the boxes!

After a couple of hours of that it's time to get the conveyor going. The mandarins come down the shoots and we pack them into the boxes and put them onto the pallets ready to go in the truck. 

This is why I like working for Italians =]

Grape Time

I've started pruning grape vines. The farm has 3 varieties of orange and countless types of grapes. My friends are pruning Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, and I'm on the slightly less exciting Sultana vines, but I do have the oldest ones; planted in 1913, they're 103 years old.

The deal is to cut away all of the branches from last year, and the ones that are not well positioned, leaving just 6 branches on the top of the vine which are left with just 6 buds. It's pretty easy work, but you have to concentrate and make sure you don't cut the wrong branches. A lot of the vines are very low so there's a lot of crouching down, and your hand hurts after a few hours of repetitive cutting. But I'm working with Lilli, a German girl who I love, and we have a great time while we are working.

Back to the Shack

We get INCREDIBLE sunsets here!

Great news in that John, the farmer whose house I was staying in, is back on his feet already. He only needed a stint instead of a heart bypass so it was only a minor procedure, not the big rib breaking one we expected. So he and Kathy are back on their farm, and I am back at the Fruitshack.

From a beautiful clean kitchen with every utensil you could think of, to one where you have to wash things up before using them, and be inventive in the way you use utensils – for future knowledge, yes you can mash potato with a fork and you can grate cheese with a knife. The kitchen has a mass clean at least once a week, but an hour later it looks like a bomb has hit, even though everyone gets frustrated and says “I don’t know who is doing it, because we all complain about it.”

1 hour later...

I’ve gone from a lovely big comfy double bed in a spacious room to a top bunk in the most crowded room you can imagine. 8 girls and backpacks with everything they own makes for a lot of stuff!

It's been a bit of a scary time, going through the EU referendum. The time difference meant we were able to watch as the votes came in, swinging from Leave to Remain. But the 4 English people here stood united.

We had a visit from Mr RedBack, one of the most dangerous spiders…

And we tried to discover how many idiots you can fit on a tractor?

There is a lot of work right now. I have completed 55 of the 88 days I need to complete to apply for a second year visa, and the days are still coming fast. The orange season has stepped up and orders are flooding in to all the local farmers. Which is great, until the orders start coming too fast. Yesterday I was ready at 6am to pick 5 bins of Valencias before 9am so we could complete a order. And right now I am supposed to be picking 12 bins of Navals for tomorrow’s deadline, but can’t because the trees are still wet from last night’s dew. You can’t pick Navels when the oranges are wet because they immediately start to go black.

I’m starting to count down the days now. I have 33 to do, maybe a month and a half. And then what?! The plan as it stands right now is to head to Melbourne and find a job that pays a decent wage so I can save some money. And then, Australia is my oyster…