Those Times I Tired to Farm...

I once cried for at least 40 minutes because I thought a fly had gotten trapped in my ear and I would die whilst it laid eggs in my brain and I became nothing more than a husk of my former self. Turns out it was just the wind and there was in fact nothing in my ear. I have been known, on occasion, to wash my hair as frequently as three times a day and as a child my brothers would mock my, often hysterical, reactions to moths getting too close to my face. Even as recently as living in Byron I left the cockroach maintenance solely in the hands of my housemate.
What I'm getting at, is that “outdoorsy” is not a word that I have ever been described as. I am not a wimp however, if a job needs doing, I'll do it. And it is with this mentality that I left Byron to start my farming adventure. For those of you who don't know, in order to secure a second year visa in Australia you must complete 88 days of “regional work”, which is more often than not on a farm. It's a very clever way to get the masses of agricultural land that Australia hosts farmed, without having to make residents complete the hours of essentially slave labour. Good move Straya.
After a brief stop in Sydney (Opera house. Bridge. Blue mountains. Done.) I headed to Adelaide with the prospect of work. After having spoken to the farmer on several occasions, it was agreed he would collect me from Adelaide airport where I would travel south to the wine regions and start harvesting grapes the following day. As my plane landed into South Australia I was informed by the captain that they were currently experiencing a heat wave and it was 45 degrees at present. I knew that this was hot, I understood that, but hearing the large number and actually being immersed in it are two very different things. I had until then assumed that everything past 37 degrees was the same, that your body reaches a point where it just says “bloody hell it’s hot” and you can't comprehend anything higher. I was wrong. It's hard to describe heat, but the most notable thing for me was breathing, as soon as I disembarked the plane my nostrils began to burn with every breath and my mouth was immediately dry. The lack of wind meant that you just inhale, stale hot air that heats your insides as well as burning your skin and sucks your body clean of any moisture. But I was still positive. I had a job and I would get my farm sorted and I could just chill out in Australia for a whole extra year if I wanted. I reclaimed my trusty backpack from the luggage carousel and phoned my farmer, no answer. Several unanswered phone calls, text messages, emails and hours later I began to realise that Derek wasn't going to appear and booked myself into the first hostel I could find. Bollocks. All together I ended up spending a week in Adelaide, which was actually quite delightful in a strange small town sort of way.
The good thing about the masses of land in Australia means that it's reasonably easy to find alternative farms to work on, and with gumtree posting new listings every ten minutes, I found myself heading across state lines once again, this time to Victoria. Putting my Adelaide experience down as a “learning curve” I was full of hope for my new job harvesting tomatoes in a small town called Rochester. A quick google revealed it to be a picturesque village from a time forgotten, where all the houses were ordained with porches and sprawling front lawns and you almost expected everyone speak with a southern drawl and wear bonnets. This time I was in fact collected from the train station by my new host as promised, so I got further than Adelaide at least, and this was a win for me. However it would be here that the winning would dwindle to an untimely halt once again. Now I'm not going to go into too much detail because I like to think of myself of having a reasonably sunny disposition and this just makes me sad and I don't want to be sad. If I could give only one piece of advise to anyone thinking of doing their farm work it would be to make sure you are paid per hour, rather than per bucket/bin/bag. To surmise my week of tomato farming into a couple of lines, I kneeled in the dirt for 9 hours a day filling a bottomless pit of a bucket with cherry tomatoes for $1.50 per bucket. For my week of back snapping physical labour under the harsh sun, I made a grand total of $95. That's about £50 for anyone back home, it's also so crappy that I quit immediately. Two farms down and a total of 5 days work completed. Only 83 left.
All is not lost however! I am writing this from the comfort of a lovely double bed (a luxury unknown to travellers) in a town west of Melbourne having completed my first week harvesting grapes for a lovely company which pays me per hour and pays taxes and makes me aware of health and safety and all other terribly boring but also fabulously refreshing and comforting protocols. I don't want to speak to soon, but they do say that the third times the charm.