Note: This was meant to be posted 6 weeks ago but the stupid internet café was being retarded, so here it is now…
Yes, I’m still in Tully after over 4 months and will be here for another 6 weeks. But there is now a light at the end of this horrible tunnel.
Let me update you… I worked at the first farm for 7 weeks and was ‘let off’ because the farm was running low on fruit and I wasn’t staying that much longer. They’d come around earlier in the day asking everyone how much longer they were planning to be working there. I didn’t really have a plan as to what I’d do after my 3 months of work (to qualify for a 2nd year of working holiday visa) was up but I knew I wanted to get the fuck outta there. So I told them 6 more weeks. Wrong answer. With 20 minutes of the working day left they came around and laid 8 of us off. Bollocks. Motherfuckers. I ended up not being able to find a job for 2 weeks. Andy pulled through with getting me a job at his farm because for some freak reason they had tons of fruit ready to pick while almost every farm had hardly any. This farm was the other end of the spectrum- tiny! Very few employees and far fewer paddocks (ie banana tree fields). I liked it way more. I got to ‘stack’, which is taking full 14kg boxes of bananas and putting them a certain way on wooden pallets. When there were 11 rows of boxes (about 7ft high I think… 2 pallets were on special elevators but 2 others were just on the floor and I had to lift the boxes over my head to get them up there) I would move the full pallet with the FORKLIFT and prep them for shipping (date stamp, tie a string around it a few times, write the destination on it). I also got to drive the tractor at this farm and go outside into the banana paddocks and “deleaf” (take excess leaves off the banana trees) and “string” (tying string between the trees so they don’t fall over. The bunches of bananas can get heavy and the roots of the trees don’t go very deep so they often fall over and the bananas are ruined; stringing prevents them for falling over). I also saw a crocodile in the river that runs adjacent to the farm. Yeah so 3 weeks and 2 days of that and then there wasn’t enough fruit to keep me and 3 other backpackers employed. I was really angry at first but calmed down… this part of the year is supposed to be when things REALLY pick up and farms start begging backpackers to work for them. So my first unemployed day I called a few farms and then the next day one called me back and gave me a job! At the new farm I get to drive the tractor for the boys who pick the banana bunches off the trees and I do some stringing. The owners are very nice and appreciate hard workers; it’s going well so far.
In 6 weeks I’ll leave Tully with 5 new friends and we’ll head down to the Gold Coast, get on a plane to Kuala Lumpur and spend 5 weeks in Thailand and Laos. After that I’m coming home for Christmas. I return to Canada December 11th and will stay for about a month, flying back to Sydney January 11th from LA. In the meantime I’ll keep working at the banana farm and saving up money for Asia and beyond.
Yes, I’m still in Tully after over 4 months and will be here for another 6 weeks. But there is now a light at the end of this horrible tunnel.
Let me update you… I worked at the first farm for 7 weeks and was ‘let off’ because the farm was running low on fruit and I wasn’t staying that much longer. They’d come around earlier in the day asking everyone how much longer they were planning to be working there. I didn’t really have a plan as to what I’d do after my 3 months of work (to qualify for a 2nd year of working holiday visa) was up but I knew I wanted to get the fuck outta there. So I told them 6 more weeks. Wrong answer. With 20 minutes of the working day left they came around and laid 8 of us off. Bollocks. Motherfuckers. I ended up not being able to find a job for 2 weeks. Andy pulled through with getting me a job at his farm because for some freak reason they had tons of fruit ready to pick while almost every farm had hardly any. This farm was the other end of the spectrum- tiny! Very few employees and far fewer paddocks (ie banana tree fields). I liked it way more. I got to ‘stack’, which is taking full 14kg boxes of bananas and putting them a certain way on wooden pallets. When there were 11 rows of boxes (about 7ft high I think… 2 pallets were on special elevators but 2 others were just on the floor and I had to lift the boxes over my head to get them up there) I would move the full pallet with the FORKLIFT and prep them for shipping (date stamp, tie a string around it a few times, write the destination on it). I also got to drive the tractor at this farm and go outside into the banana paddocks and “deleaf” (take excess leaves off the banana trees) and “string” (tying string between the trees so they don’t fall over. The bunches of bananas can get heavy and the roots of the trees don’t go very deep so they often fall over and the bananas are ruined; stringing prevents them for falling over). I also saw a crocodile in the river that runs adjacent to the farm. Yeah so 3 weeks and 2 days of that and then there wasn’t enough fruit to keep me and 3 other backpackers employed. I was really angry at first but calmed down… this part of the year is supposed to be when things REALLY pick up and farms start begging backpackers to work for them. So my first unemployed day I called a few farms and then the next day one called me back and gave me a job! At the new farm I get to drive the tractor for the boys who pick the banana bunches off the trees and I do some stringing. The owners are very nice and appreciate hard workers; it’s going well so far.
In 6 weeks I’ll leave Tully with 5 new friends and we’ll head down to the Gold Coast, get on a plane to Kuala Lumpur and spend 5 weeks in Thailand and Laos. After that I’m coming home for Christmas. I return to Canada December 11th and will stay for about a month, flying back to Sydney January 11th from LA. In the meantime I’ll keep working at the banana farm and saving up money for Asia and beyond.
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