Last weekend, or I guesss 2 weekends ago now, I went to Cairns for 2 nights! After only 4 days of Banana work I really needed the getaway! haha
ANyways, after a misunderstanding and a car that wouldn't start I ended up taking the 11pm Greyhound to Cairns. I arrived at 1:30am and then it took me another 30mins to find my drunk b/f, ANdy. The night was young and we took full advantage of all that Ciarns nightlife has to offer (which is wicked!)
The next day was pretty low key. I spent a few hours at Macca's for free wifi and then a little while at the waterfront lagoon. Beautiful. We went out again that night and partied it up! Luckily the weather cooperated and it was a gorgeous 28C. We went back to Tully early on Sunday (our ride needed to get to Brisbane, over 1000km, in a few days) after a short spot in Innisfail for KFC (barf). SHit went down that afternoon with Southeast England drunk James on the prowl. First it took him 3 hours to take a shower (people were yelling at him to shower he smelt so bad) and when he finally did he feel and hit his head. Then later he lit a garbage bin on fire that was full of paper towel. He melted the bin. Tully drama I tell you.
It was back to work on MOnday and then this past weekend was pretty chilled out, besides getting kicked out of a stupid Radiator's concert in Silkwood. I went to bed at 8:30pm on Saturday! haha! Sunday we all played some soccer on the state school's field- it was good times. We're going to try to play every weekend now.
So that's Tully life. Pretty uneventful.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Banana Job
The Golden Gumboot of Tully, QLD I got a banana job and my first day was Tuesday. I work at a Mackay farm- Bolinda Estates. The biggest banana farm in all the land apparently. As a female I am restricted to the shed to do womans work, which for a newbie like me is sorting and cutting. The shed is the size of an airplane hanger, if not larger, and it is literally a banana factory. The males are out in the paddocks ‘humping’ the banana bunches aka cutting them off the trees and putting them in a trailer attached to a tractor. Then the tractor takes the trailer to the shed and it is unloaded. Then a more males hang the bunches, take off the bags (banana bunches grow in protective bags, snakes and rats and frogs and spiders get in anyway), and then more males cut off big ‘hands’ from the bunches and throw them in the water of a big table like thing. IN the water the bananas get clean and that’s when the women start there work. We get to sort the fuckers. Looking for gashes, big spots, rottenness, etc etc etc. Then another female (or unlucky small male who couldn’t get a humping job) has a knife and cuts the hands into small hands consisting of 2-9 bananas. Then the bananas go down the line a bit more and get more clean and then the packers, more women, pack the bananas in boxes. Then the boxes go down a conveyor belt and someone puts a lid on them. And then they are sent all over Australia for people to eat.
The number of bananas thrown away is appalling.
Sometimes tree frogs hide in the bananas and we get to catch them and put them in a bucket to be re-released to the wild later. The bucket says ‘Poison’ on it and that sort of confuses me.
The sorting line tables are too low for me and I have to lift the bananas high to see them when I’m sorting and it makes my back sore. Hopefully it will pass in another few days.
Oh yeah, the work day is 8 hours long. I catch the bus at 6:25am, get to the farm by 6:50am, work starts at 7. Then we have four 2 hour sessions separated by either smoko (break) or lunch. An old school bell marks the start and end of each session- I feel like I’m back at Sinclair! Work ends at 4pm. I’m back ‘home’ by 4:30 and then have to wait until about 6pm for the water in the showers to be hot again (people at other farms get home earlier, but also start earlier too). But I don’t get very dirty at all since we are required to wear gloves, an ugly ass hat with a hairnet attached, and an apron that is forever covered in banana sap.
After just 4 days on the job I now realize why people drink so much on the weekends in Tully.
The number of bananas thrown away is appalling.
Sometimes tree frogs hide in the bananas and we get to catch them and put them in a bucket to be re-released to the wild later. The bucket says ‘Poison’ on it and that sort of confuses me.
The sorting line tables are too low for me and I have to lift the bananas high to see them when I’m sorting and it makes my back sore. Hopefully it will pass in another few days.
Oh yeah, the work day is 8 hours long. I catch the bus at 6:25am, get to the farm by 6:50am, work starts at 7. Then we have four 2 hour sessions separated by either smoko (break) or lunch. An old school bell marks the start and end of each session- I feel like I’m back at Sinclair! Work ends at 4pm. I’m back ‘home’ by 4:30 and then have to wait until about 6pm for the water in the showers to be hot again (people at other farms get home earlier, but also start earlier too). But I don’t get very dirty at all since we are required to wear gloves, an ugly ass hat with a hairnet attached, and an apron that is forever covered in banana sap.
After just 4 days on the job I now realize why people drink so much on the weekends in Tully.
In other news, I'm in Cairns for the weekend with Andy and his brother and some of their friends from home. It's nice to escape Tully for a bit and be back in civilization!
ALso, my apologies for getting so far behind on posting, I'm going to try to be better with shorter updates!
Mount Tyson
View from the top One of the things I like best about Tully is the surrounding natural environment, especially looming Mount Tyson that serves as backdrop for the small main street of town. Shortly after arriving in Tully I learned that there was a hiking trail that took you up to the top of the mountain, where you could see as far as Mission Beach, so knowing that there was a way up there made me want to do it.
Now, I’d been waiting to go up this mountain for some time but you really have to time it right with the weather; a clear day is ideal as any kind of cloud cover can mean it is raining at the top (the top is legit rainforest). So yesterday, Sunday May 7, a friend of mine, Andy, and I went hiked up Mt Tyson. We couldn’t have timed it better since we ended up not starting til 1:30pm and two groups had already started up before us. This was good because usually, or at least the first time Andy went up in March, there were spiders, massive spiders, everywhere. We’re talking spiders the size of your head, the kinds that eat birds, and if they bite you you can get sick or even die I think. So you have to take a stick and go slow and make sure all the webs and spiders are out of your way up the path. We didn’t see a single spider or web. This may have been because it is winter here and they’re all hibernating or something, but either way it made it much easier. There were still leeches near the top in the rainforest section but if you caught them early you could just tear them off before they latched on. Andy got a big one in his shoe that had to be burned off with the lighter we’d brought. The mozzies were also insane but nothing some Musoka Deep Woods couldn’t handle.
Anyway, it was a class 5 hiking trail and definitely not easy. I also came to realize how terribly out of shape I am, haha. There were sections going up that you literally climb up but don’t realize how vertical it is until coming back down. It was all worth it though. Since the day was so clear the view was spectacular! We could see Mission Beach and surround coastline, plus miles and miles of farm land on the other side. It was also really nice to get out and do something active for a change.
In other news, I helped Andy make Mud Crab risotto for a big group of people on the weekend. I actually only did the crab handling. The man at the seafood shop told us that the most humane way to kill the sucker was to leave him in the fridge all day, like 4 hours, and then take him out and clean him before cooking him. But after 3 hours in the fridge he was still alive and moved to the freezer for the final hour. After that he appeared to be dead but as I cleaned the mud off his shell (luckily he was still strapped up in twine) he came out of hibernation. It was like we were trying to kill Super Crab. I got him clean and when the water finally started to boil (damn electric stove tops in this place made it take forever) we had to cut the twine before dropping him in. Andy did the cutting but as soon as his huge claws were freeze he started to flail about in protest, causing Andy to run away with me left holding the thing. I half dropped him into the pot and used a big knife to pry his remaining legs and claw into the pot to meet his fate. It was all pretty funny. Once the crab was dead and cooked and a lovely red-orange color, this German guy and I cleaned the crab, getting all the meat out. Breaking into his huge claws was a challenge and I ended up with crab bits and juices all over me. It was a good learning experience to say the least and the risotto was excellent.
Now, I’d been waiting to go up this mountain for some time but you really have to time it right with the weather; a clear day is ideal as any kind of cloud cover can mean it is raining at the top (the top is legit rainforest). So yesterday, Sunday May 7, a friend of mine, Andy, and I went hiked up Mt Tyson. We couldn’t have timed it better since we ended up not starting til 1:30pm and two groups had already started up before us. This was good because usually, or at least the first time Andy went up in March, there were spiders, massive spiders, everywhere. We’re talking spiders the size of your head, the kinds that eat birds, and if they bite you you can get sick or even die I think. So you have to take a stick and go slow and make sure all the webs and spiders are out of your way up the path. We didn’t see a single spider or web. This may have been because it is winter here and they’re all hibernating or something, but either way it made it much easier. There were still leeches near the top in the rainforest section but if you caught them early you could just tear them off before they latched on. Andy got a big one in his shoe that had to be burned off with the lighter we’d brought. The mozzies were also insane but nothing some Musoka Deep Woods couldn’t handle.
Anyway, it was a class 5 hiking trail and definitely not easy. I also came to realize how terribly out of shape I am, haha. There were sections going up that you literally climb up but don’t realize how vertical it is until coming back down. It was all worth it though. Since the day was so clear the view was spectacular! We could see Mission Beach and surround coastline, plus miles and miles of farm land on the other side. It was also really nice to get out and do something active for a change.
In other news, I helped Andy make Mud Crab risotto for a big group of people on the weekend. I actually only did the crab handling. The man at the seafood shop told us that the most humane way to kill the sucker was to leave him in the fridge all day, like 4 hours, and then take him out and clean him before cooking him. But after 3 hours in the fridge he was still alive and moved to the freezer for the final hour. After that he appeared to be dead but as I cleaned the mud off his shell (luckily he was still strapped up in twine) he came out of hibernation. It was like we were trying to kill Super Crab. I got him clean and when the water finally started to boil (damn electric stove tops in this place made it take forever) we had to cut the twine before dropping him in. Andy did the cutting but as soon as his huge claws were freeze he started to flail about in protest, causing Andy to run away with me left holding the thing. I half dropped him into the pot and used a big knife to pry his remaining legs and claw into the pot to meet his fate. It was all pretty funny. Once the crab was dead and cooked and a lovely red-orange color, this German guy and I cleaned the crab, getting all the meat out. Breaking into his huge claws was a challenge and I ended up with crab bits and juices all over me. It was a good learning experience to say the least and the risotto was excellent.
Andy's Leech
This Shit is Bananas
(Written week of June 1st)
Working with bananas makes people go bananas in this town. I’ve been in Tully over three weeks and well it has been an experience and a half. First impressions were good: it wasn’t raining. The town slogan is “A pretty wet place” and the joke is that they measure the rain fall in meters, not millimeters. There is a 7.9m tall Golden Gumboot in town that you can actually climb up to get a view of the area. Another thing about this town is that the banana work attracts a lot of Asian people, so the population of my hostel is about 90% Asian and most of them don’t speak very much English at all. It’s a little bit fascinating. I’ve decided that there is a certain charm that makes me really like this town. The town is tiny but everyone is so friendly and outgoing. It’s the Australia I’ve been looking for I think. Tropical North Queensland is beautiful with its hills of rainforest and it doesn’t hurt that it has only rained a few days since I’ve been here. The weather is actually a lot like August in Kingston- warm in the day but then kind of cold once the sun has gone down.
Unfortunately, with the Australian winter just starting my timing to find banana work couldn’t have been worse. It is the depth of the slow season and so it took me just about three weeks to finally find a job- I start tomorrow.
The weekdays are pretty boring when everyone is off at work (people who have been here a month or 2 or 14 have jobs, there just aren’t any new jobs right now) but the weekends are ridiculous. They’re actually ricockandbullsulous. Since there is nothing to do in Tully but drink, the booze (mostly goon) is consumed at astonishing levels, which makes for an entertaining evening. The only bar in town that stays open late is down the street- Rafters- and is attached to the Banana Barracks Backpackers, the big one in town that gets the most work (they also charge more) and is a wild place due to all the banana workers letting off steam after a week of hard, tedious work. Good times indeed on a Friday night there. I’ve met some really cool people here though and would certainly like to stay for a couple months, despite the lack of wifi, to get my 2nd year visa and make some sweet moola.
Anyways, I could go on and on with anecdotes of the funny and crazy things that have gone on here but I won’t, although I will tell you about my bogan ‘BBQ’ experience. As I mentioned some months ago, I think, a bogan is the Australian slang word for a redneck/hick/hillbilly what have you. Andy, one of the English guys I’ve been hanging out/partying with, asked me if I wanted to go to this BBQ at one of his co-workers houses. I said sure, not like I had anything else to do, and who doesn’t like a BBQ? Now, the people he works with are the banana workers who aren’t backpackers, aka locals aka total backwood hicks, and he sort of warned me of this before we went but... It was a fucking insane experience. Going out to this woman’s house, which was in the middle sugarcane fields, in a taxi with these people who were all loaded, like retarded drunk (it was like 4:30-5pm on a Friday). The woman’s whose house it was, Chrissy, had no front teeth and the rest of her teeth were all black and rotting. But she was really nice, a good hostess. Like other bogan’s I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting I’ve found that they are always explaining themselves, like she was about 45years old and told the same story over and over- about why she was a little broke at the moment, because her daughter just turned 16 and she is trying to keep her in school but the government isn’t helping her blah blah. The house was shabby as, like run down and just redneck hillbilly dirty. This BBQ ended up just being drinking and smoking out at a picnic table in the yard. The other guests at the BBQ were fucked as well. One old man, early 50s, fell asleep at the table pretty quick. Another guy, who apparently can’t read or write, is late 40s, terrible teeth as well, just sat there starring at me the whole time. They all commented on what great teeth I had. There was a guy in his late 20s who was probably the most ’normal’ but still Aussie bogan trash, drunk and stoned as like the rest of them, with fuck being every other word. Chrissy’s 16 year daughter was there too and acted as barmaid. I asked her why she didn’t want to do school anymore and she said it was just too hard, involved too much focus. At one point some man came walking out of the sugar cane, it was a little weird, but he ended up being the guy who lived in Crhissy’s shed. He joined in on the ‘BBQ’ too. We ended up not staying for very long because it was such a retarded situation and not actually the kind of BBQ either of us expected., plus they were getting pretty mean with the dirty pom comments towards Andy. But I thought it was pretty hilarious and a really unique Aussie experience.
One more thing- the Golden Gumboot Festival ended up being a bust. We weren’t expecting such a family oriented event, especially in Australia where drinking is part of most everything, so we lasted about 15 minutes before going back to the hostel and having our own festival of sorts. Good times in Tully.
Don’t Forget: Say No to Banana Exports in Australia.
Working with bananas makes people go bananas in this town. I’ve been in Tully over three weeks and well it has been an experience and a half. First impressions were good: it wasn’t raining. The town slogan is “A pretty wet place” and the joke is that they measure the rain fall in meters, not millimeters. There is a 7.9m tall Golden Gumboot in town that you can actually climb up to get a view of the area. Another thing about this town is that the banana work attracts a lot of Asian people, so the population of my hostel is about 90% Asian and most of them don’t speak very much English at all. It’s a little bit fascinating. I’ve decided that there is a certain charm that makes me really like this town. The town is tiny but everyone is so friendly and outgoing. It’s the Australia I’ve been looking for I think. Tropical North Queensland is beautiful with its hills of rainforest and it doesn’t hurt that it has only rained a few days since I’ve been here. The weather is actually a lot like August in Kingston- warm in the day but then kind of cold once the sun has gone down.
Unfortunately, with the Australian winter just starting my timing to find banana work couldn’t have been worse. It is the depth of the slow season and so it took me just about three weeks to finally find a job- I start tomorrow.
The weekdays are pretty boring when everyone is off at work (people who have been here a month or 2 or 14 have jobs, there just aren’t any new jobs right now) but the weekends are ridiculous. They’re actually ricockandbullsulous. Since there is nothing to do in Tully but drink, the booze (mostly goon) is consumed at astonishing levels, which makes for an entertaining evening. The only bar in town that stays open late is down the street- Rafters- and is attached to the Banana Barracks Backpackers, the big one in town that gets the most work (they also charge more) and is a wild place due to all the banana workers letting off steam after a week of hard, tedious work. Good times indeed on a Friday night there. I’ve met some really cool people here though and would certainly like to stay for a couple months, despite the lack of wifi, to get my 2nd year visa and make some sweet moola.
Anyways, I could go on and on with anecdotes of the funny and crazy things that have gone on here but I won’t, although I will tell you about my bogan ‘BBQ’ experience. As I mentioned some months ago, I think, a bogan is the Australian slang word for a redneck/hick/hillbilly what have you. Andy, one of the English guys I’ve been hanging out/partying with, asked me if I wanted to go to this BBQ at one of his co-workers houses. I said sure, not like I had anything else to do, and who doesn’t like a BBQ? Now, the people he works with are the banana workers who aren’t backpackers, aka locals aka total backwood hicks, and he sort of warned me of this before we went but... It was a fucking insane experience. Going out to this woman’s house, which was in the middle sugarcane fields, in a taxi with these people who were all loaded, like retarded drunk (it was like 4:30-5pm on a Friday). The woman’s whose house it was, Chrissy, had no front teeth and the rest of her teeth were all black and rotting. But she was really nice, a good hostess. Like other bogan’s I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting I’ve found that they are always explaining themselves, like she was about 45years old and told the same story over and over- about why she was a little broke at the moment, because her daughter just turned 16 and she is trying to keep her in school but the government isn’t helping her blah blah. The house was shabby as, like run down and just redneck hillbilly dirty. This BBQ ended up just being drinking and smoking out at a picnic table in the yard. The other guests at the BBQ were fucked as well. One old man, early 50s, fell asleep at the table pretty quick. Another guy, who apparently can’t read or write, is late 40s, terrible teeth as well, just sat there starring at me the whole time. They all commented on what great teeth I had. There was a guy in his late 20s who was probably the most ’normal’ but still Aussie bogan trash, drunk and stoned as like the rest of them, with fuck being every other word. Chrissy’s 16 year daughter was there too and acted as barmaid. I asked her why she didn’t want to do school anymore and she said it was just too hard, involved too much focus. At one point some man came walking out of the sugar cane, it was a little weird, but he ended up being the guy who lived in Crhissy’s shed. He joined in on the ‘BBQ’ too. We ended up not staying for very long because it was such a retarded situation and not actually the kind of BBQ either of us expected., plus they were getting pretty mean with the dirty pom comments towards Andy. But I thought it was pretty hilarious and a really unique Aussie experience.
One more thing- the Golden Gumboot Festival ended up being a bust. We weren’t expecting such a family oriented event, especially in Australia where drinking is part of most everything, so we lasted about 15 minutes before going back to the hostel and having our own festival of sorts. Good times in Tully.
Don’t Forget: Say No to Banana Exports in Australia.
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