"Fruit picking"..........

Well, its been a while since we last wrote and you are probably thinking that we have just been having too much fun to let you know what we have been up to......however, you couldn't be farther from the truth as we have spent the last 6 weeks "fruit picking" in small town and backpacker hating Bundaberg! It really hasnt been the romantic ideal that you (and we) imagined!

From day one we have more or less spent the whole time tending to the needs of the sweet potato (veg.....NOT fruit!!) and have picked, planted (which, to Alice's dismay was not sprinkling seeds, but pushing dirty great vines into the mud!), weeded, packed and vined the buggers! And these are no ordinary sweet potato either, they look like they have been on steroids as some are the size of a new born baby!! On an average day we work with two others and usually pick around 8 to 12 tons of potato's in the blistering sun, in the middle of a huge shadeless field! It has been hard, heavy, hot and dirty work but we are now beginning our 6th week and on the count down to when we can leave in 3 - 4 more weeks! My (Ally) favourite farmers quote so far was when we were planting and the farmer said to Alice, "urm I think you just planted a leaf"!

In the main the local farmers are.....indifferent, so it has been challenging at times to say the least, and we have had one day in particular where would have walked out had we not been in the middle of nowhere during monsoon rains! Needless to say we refused to work for this farm again after a 9 hour onslaught of being abbusively shouted and sworn at, which was the lowest point of our trip so far. And to name and shame for our own satisfaction they were called Banks Farm. (Boycott their potatoes!!!)

To give you some idea of the place we are staying, the house next door to the hostel is (as everywhere else) filled with abusive hillbilly kids that are more than happy to swear at you on you way in, it's also almost impossible to walk into town without a passing car shouting at you through their open window, the local hero is a spitting image for the Crazy Frog and the cinema is closed on the weekend.....! Leaving......we cant wait!

However, it hasn't all been bad as two nights ago, we saw our favourite comedian Ross Noble on the strangely scheduled Bundaberg leg of his Australian tour which was the highlight of our stay so far!! Being based in one place for a time has allowed us to meet some really nice people from all over the world which has been nice, we are currently staying with 3 Japanese and 1 Taiwanese girls (who are great cooks and have treated us to authentic home made sushi), we have a load of Irish, French, Belgian, Italian, German, Korean and Scottish too.

So, as you can tell, the lack of recent blogs has been down to the fact that we have simply been working, eating (a lot!) and sleeping, and thats about all since the new year! Hopefully next time we write we will have left Bundaberg and have some more exciting stories to tell and more pictures to share but here are a few for now!

We hope everyone is getting on well and has had a good start to 2009! Stay in touch and we will be soon too!

Ally and Alice x

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