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Published: November 22nd 2009
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Melons, melons, melons……..
Ah yes, a day in the life of a Water Melon picker.
Wake up 5am. Breakfast is a large strong coffee and cereal, combined with murmured ‘good mornings’ to fellow workers. You know its going to be a good day. But every joint in your body screams ‘NO’.
5:45am, dressed and ready to go with your lunch you’ve packed the night before and the customary five litres of chilled water to last you the day. It won’t stay cold for long in the heat, but for the first few hours it was worth the effort.
6am and the bus leaves for your designated destination, and that of the others, dropping small groups off at different farms along the way. The coffee is starting to kick in and the painkillers have numbed the aches and pains. The bus stinks from everyone wearing the same clothes over and over and the radio tells you it’s going to be 35C by mid morning. Now you know it’s going to be a good day.
Depending on location and individual farms you should be picking the fruit by 6:30am. The first hour drags on, but once in
the swing of things the time whistles on by. If your lucky there will be a light breeze, if your not, your increasingly warm five litres will be down to three by 10am.
‘Smoko’ signals the first break of the day. Fifteen minutes of paid break where you will eat a snack or in my case ‘lunch’, to get you through to days end or a longer break for actual lunch. Farming days vary in length; at the moment I finish at around 2pm but have worked till 6pm before. Of course the fifteen feels like five and the coffee is long gone and the painkillers might need another dose but by now it’s all just part of the job.
The Quota for the day is 100tons, and the melons need to be picked, so its back to work all to soon. Its getting hotter by the hour, your water is now hot to the point of warm tea, but your all in the same boat so complaining will only make things go slower.
Picking Water Melons isn’t rocket science. In basic terms you pick the big ones. They should have a dead ‘curly’ so you know
its ripe, and a slight yellow tinge on the skin. Too much yellow and the melon is burnt, to little and it will taste like old, watery cheese.
A good Water Melon is round like a football, but they come in all shapes and sizes. A big melon is an exception to the above rules. 20kilos or above is just a simple pick and place procedure, no thought, just pick and move forward. Judging these things is easy to a ‘trained’ eye, but to a ‘novice’ it might take ten seconds or so to judge if the melon is worth picking. Unfortunately by this time the tractor has probably advanced a good fifteen feet and you might find yourself playing catch-up for three or four melons after.
If your on the tractor, you don’t have to pick, but sort the melons. Not as physical but more of a mental battle. Tapping a melon with an open palm to hear its resonance. If its tight like a drum skin, it’s a good melon and goes in its namesake bin. If it’s a deeper hollow sound, it has a hole in the middle, due to several mind numbingly boring reasons, and is
a ‘second’, cheaper, melon. You will do little or no walking whilst on the tractor, but 8 hours of tapping melons is enough to push even the most grounded individual to the edge of being classed clinical.
After two weeks you’ll be a melon-picking machine. A humble servant to the melon paddock. You’ll live for early mornings and stinking clothes, painkillers for the ever-increasing bad back, dreams/ nightmares that involve melons and of course the weekly pay check. Which for one day at least, will make it seem worthwhile.
But a day off? Dream on. Pray for rain. But it’s unlikely.
There is money in Fruit picking, and in Bundaberg at the moment its high season for melons and pumpkins. I have picked over the last fifteen days, Sweat Potatoes, Rock Melons, Water Melons and two types of Pumpkins. All have their quirks, Sweat Potatoes you get filthy and its fast sweaty work. Pumpkins will leave you scratched to oblivion and are home to the poisonous red-back spider, so gloves are a must. Rock melons are much smaller than their cousins but grow in higher density so the work is same as that of Water Melons only
lighter and faster.
I’ll stick with Water Melons for now, after fourteen days I know what to look for and can nearly induce a trance like state of melon picking that make the days whiz on by.
Money as they say, is Money.
In two weeks I have earned over $1000 and have saved over $700. Content in the knowledge that I will likely be an inch shorter by the end of my stay in Bundaberg and well on the way to being built like a brick shit house. But will leave with some good memories and some great friends.
…………………..
Its getting hot here, hotter than it should be for this time of year, with the News saying 41C for Sydney and the heat wave moving north, I think work could get really hot really quick.
Last week I met up with a couple of the locals from work for a couple of beers. Well, it was from 3pm till late so perhaps a ‘couple’ is a little inaccurate. But it was nice to see the bars in town that most backpackers would not get served in. Real workmen’s’ pubs, the conversation being mainly that of who’s harvesting what and where the nearest wild1 fire is at the moment, market prices etc. From the outside boring stuff, but it was great to be accepted as one the guys and not the usual “where are you from”, “England” , question. They have live ‘TAB’ betting in one particular workman’s bar, live horse and dog racing from around the world. Safe to say I won nothing but the night was anything but boring. Melon picking the next day however was a long hard slog to put it lightly!
So as I said in an earlier entry there is little to do in Bundaberg. You don’t stay here unless you’re working. So apart from work there is little to talk about.
My plan at the moment, is to save enough money to buy myself a motorbike, this is the idea anyway. Its obvious that to really get the most out of Australia you need your own transport. Quite a few people have cars, which have the added bonus of being somewhere to sleep. But most locals agree that a motorbike is the best mode of transport for Australia. I think after 4 or so more weeks I should have enough money to get a good second hand off road type bike, with a 400cc ish engine. Then with a few extras such as a bigger fuel tank and some metal luggage racks welded on to the back I should be sorted in terms of transport, and for accommodation camping is available everywhere and cheap.
To be continued.....
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Dad
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Water melons
Great Blog really interesting reading makes picking grapes seem almost tame- don't forget the sunscreen ! Love dad