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Published: February 27th 2007
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Another day at the office
Tomato plants for as far as the eye can see. Well it's been rather a long time since we last updated this so we thought we'd better let you guys know that we're still alive...just!
To cut a long story short we've just spent the last five weeks doing some fruit picking work for some much needed dollars. This has meant early mornings (even before the sun has risen properly- well for me as Jonny always seems to get the jobs that allow a lie in) and even earlier nights as they was little else to do in Bundaberg. Five weeks of healthy living!!
During our time in Bundy we picked and packed lychees, mangoes, passion fruit, tomatos and sweet potatoes. We also had the joy of weeding, paddock clearing and pruning tomato plants. We met some genuine aussie locals - however everyone seems to be related in some way! Now you see why we haven't updated this for a while!!!
However there has been a highlight of our whole trip whilst we've been here. I have discovered that you can buy rich tea biscuits (disguised as Milk Arrowroot biccies) in Oz! How good is that? (please read this in an Aussie accent as it's an Aussie saying).
Berty
Bundy's most famous son! Bundaberg is famous for it's local rum so we went on a trip to the Bundy Rum distillery - the tour was good, imformative etc but the best bit was the rum tasting. They make a liquor (sorry can't spell) called Royal Liquor which is a mix of coffee, chocolate, caramel and rum of course! This stuff is liquid heaven, i cannot even put into words how good it was. The downside is that you can only buy it at the distillery, however this is probably a good thing as i would actually drink it for breakfast (and lunch and dinner!) if it was available to buy everywhere!
Bundaberg's other claim to fame is an (alledgedly) well know pilot named Bert Hinkler. This much lauded fellow flew the first solo flight between Australia and England taking 30-something days. He's so well loved in Bundy that they shipped over the house in which he lived in Southampton, and rebuilt it brick by brick in order to open it as the Bert Hinkler museum! He cemented his cult status by dying in his thirties whilst attempting to set more flying records (however i cannot remember what record breaking attempt it
Bundy Rum
No, the bottles aren't really this size. was and i believe that this is actually a hanging offence in Bundy!)
When all the travel guides inform you of the benefits of fruit picking work they fail to mention the hazards of mangoes. Now you wouldn't think that the innocent looking mango could be quite so dangerous but it's actually up there with deadly jellyfish and crocs in the danger stakes! Ok, so i'm exagerrating slightly. But Jonny did get a very bad case of mango rash, where his whole body (not a single bit of him escaped!) was covered in a red scaly rash, and his face and arms swelled up so he looked rather like he'd just done ten rounds in the ring! Truely quite scary! Oh he also suffered some sap burns as well. See i told you they were dangerous!
On the subject of danger, my near death experience...I had a very close encounter with a red-back spider (they have the most powerful venom of any Aussie spider). It was in the bin of mangoes i was packing and i initially tried to make myself pick it up to get rid of it (I didn't know what it was), however the red
Australian icon?
Bundy Rum's iconic creature (because you get a lot of polar bears in Oz!) stripe on it's back made me a bit concerned so i decided not to touch it. But i didn't want to make a fuss so i just carried on packing mangoes for the next fifteen minutes until someone came near enough for me to ask to move it, at which point he told me that i wasn't allowed to touch it 'cos it was deadly and went to find something to kill it with! In defence of my stupidity, i blame all those people who've laughed at my spider phobia over the years, and in answer to everyone's smart alec comments - spiders CAN actually hurt you! And in future if i suspect that i've got a venomous creature near me i won't continue to put my hands near it so as not to make a fuss!!
One final thing..... yesterday while watching the mighty Liverpool defeat the European Champions we met a couple of lads who proved the world is a small place as one of them lived in Sudbury and the other came from a small place on the outskirts of sudbury called Great Cornard (Bures Road)! That'll mean nothing to most people but the 'nard is going global! I also found out about the latest refurbishment the Big E! Can't wait!!!!!!!
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Naomi
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I always knew it was good to be scared of spiders!!!!!!!!!